Deltacron COVID: What is this new variant, and should we be worried?
Just as omicron cases have started to dwindle, we might be in for yet another COVID roller coaster.
A new coronavirus variant, deltacron, has been identified in at least 17 patients in the U.S. and Europe, the World Health Organization said this week.
“The virus continues to evolve,” said the World Health Organization director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a press briefing Wednesday. “And we continue to face major obstacles in distributing vaccines, tests and treatments everywhere they’re needed.”
What is deltacron COVID?
Deltacron is a hybrid delta-omicron strain, containing elements of both delta and omicron variants. It’s believed to have mutated in a patient who caught the delta and omicron variants simultaneously. Because deltacron combines genes of both variants, it’s known as a “recombinant virus,” according to WHO, which is very common among coronaviruses.
“The hybrid genome harbors signature mutations of the two lineages,” reads a report published Tuesday on medRxiv. It’s estimated to have emerged in December 2021.
“Two pandemic variants, Delta and Omicron, recently succeeded each other as the predominant viruses but co-circulated for a period of several weeks, creating conditions for co-infections and subsequently recombinations,” researchers said. “This period spanned between Dec. 27, 2021 and Feb. 14, 2022.”
Where has deltacron been found?
Two different versions of deltacron have been detected in the United States, according to a yet-to-be-released MedRxiv study by San Mateo, California, lab Helix, which works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health authorities have not said where the cases were.
Researchers sequenced 29,719 coronavirus samples collected nationwide from Nov. 22 to Feb. 13, according to a report by USA Today.
About 12 deltacron cases have been identified in Denmark and the Netherlands since January, Reuters reported.
The research published Tuesday described three patients in France infected with a version of COVID that combines the spike protein (the part that attaches to human cells) from an omicron variant with the backbone or body of a delta variant.
What are deltacron symptoms?
It’s undetermined exactly how severe or transmissible the variant is. Researchers say more cases would need to emerge before they can effectively study the variant.
Deltacron appears unlikely to spread as easily as delta and omicron, William Lee, the chief science officer at Helix, told USA Today.
In the France study, patients who had deltacron “presented mild respiratory symptoms.”
There have been very few cases of deltacron identified. Because case counts remain low and the two cases in the U.S. were different, experts say there’s no reason to panic.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove of WHO said at the press conference Wednesday “there are very low levels of this detection.”
She says the recombinant was to be expected, given that delta and omicron were intensely circulating in the population, at some point at the same time. “This is what viruses do, they change over time,” Van Kerkhove said.
How will we get ahead of it?
Van Kerkhove said that testing and sequencing remain critical in monitoring variants and virus evolution around the world.
WHO would continue monitoring deltacron for ”any change in the epidemiology.” She added: “We haven’t seen any change in severity. But there are many studies that are underway.”
But the pandemic is not over, Van Kerkhove says: “Unfortunately this virus will take opportunities to continue to spread.”
More than 961,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 during the pandemic.
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 1:38 PM.
