If the coronavirus epidemic is somewhat off the radar, with figures that are moving in the right direction and the news around the Ukrainian crisis, the virus infected 13,483 people on Monday.
At the same time, the announcement of the discovery of a hybrid variant, a combination of Delta and Omicron, mentioned at the beginning of January, seems to be confirmed.
A recombination of the Delta and Omicron variants, baptized Deltacron, has been identified in France on around ten people, according to Public Health France, in a document published last week.
“Detection during Flash sequencing surveys and the geographic dispersion of cases may suggest that this recombinant is potentially already circulating at very low levels since mid-January”indicates Public Health France.
“Major Evolutionary Event”
However, the agency specifies that additional analyzes are in progress to confirm these results.
However, “these recombinants are subject to increased monitoring, as they constitute major evolutionary events. It is difficult to predict what their characteristics will be in relation to the variants from which they are derived, and therefore their impact on public health in the event of circulation in the population.“
France is not the only country concerned. Mid February, this recombinant was identified for the first time across the Channel by the Health Agency of the United Kingdom, but also in Denmark and the Netherlands.
Contamination during sequencing?
At the beginning of January 2022, Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biology at the University of Cyprus, also claimed to have identified this new mutation of the virus by analyzing samples taken both from the general population and from hospitalized patients.
However, this discovery has been questioned by several specialists. According to them, Deltacron comes from contamination during sequencing.
