New Delhi: The United Kingdom has reported small clusters of recombinant Delta and Omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. An Indian virologist said such cross mutations are expected and there is no reason to be alarmed yet.
Recombinant variants refer to new variants of the virus that are created by genetic mutations from two different variants.
On 11 February, the UK Health Security Agency added “Delta x Omicron Recombinant (UK)” under the list of Covid-19 variants being monitored and investigated.
Meanwhile, researchers from Australia have also reported seven sequences of Delta x Omicron among the genomic sequences uploaded from the country.
Recombination can occur when two variants infect the same host cell. Exchange of genetic material between Covid variants occurs because of the way that RNA viruses copy genomes. During replication, the enzyme that the viruses use for replication can end up stitching together bits from different variants.
Delta x Omicron is not the same as Deltacron, reported by a team of researchers in Cyprus. While a series of news reports in January claimed that Deltacron was a new variant, virologists globally refuted the scientific validity of the claim. Analysis of the sequences later indicated that Deltacron was just a contaminated sample and not a variant by itself.
What Indian expert says
Vinod Scaria, a researcher at CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in Delhi, explained in a thread on microblogging site Twitter that Delta x Omicron recombinants do exist but they are not called Deltacron.
“(There is) nothing to suggest at this moment that these recombinants have any additional advantage compared to omicron. More epidemiological data is being awaited as more genomes get reported from across the world,” Scaria said.
An additional cluster of genomes from Australia have also been reported. This cluster has 7 genomes, mostly from #Queensland , #Australia
https://t.co/h1X2A6Ubyq— Vinod Scaria (@vinodscaria) February 15, 2022
He also noted that while recombinations in SARS-COV-2 are not as frequent as seen in influenza viruses, there have been multiple recombination events reported in the Covid pandemic. For example, some previously named lineages include XA, XB and XC, Scaria said.
He added that more epidemiological data is being awaited as more genomes get reported from across the world.
Also read: Neo-CoV is a no Cov: How 10-yr-old virus is causing needless alarm & what study actually says