CSL staff will be working in the laboratory in Melbourne, Australia on November 8, 2020, where they will begin manufacturing AstraZeneca-Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Darrian Traynor | Getty Images
A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the Delta and Omicron variants, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.
Leondios Kostrikis, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, named the strain “Deltacron” because of its omicron-like genetic signatures within the Delta genomes, Bloomberg said.
So far, Kostrikis and his team have found 25 cases of the virus, according to the report. It’s too early to say if there are any more cases of the stress or what impact it might have.
“We will see in the future whether this strain is pathological or more contagious or whether it will prevail against the two dominant strains Delta and Omicron,” said Kostrikis in an interview with Sigma TV on Friday. He believes Omicron will overtake Deltacron too, he added.
The researchers sent their results this week to GISAID, an international database that, according to Bloomberg, tracks viruses.
The Deltacron variant is coming as Omicron continues its rapid spread around the world, leading to a surge in Covid-19 cases. According to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University on Friday, the US reports a seven-day average of more than 600,000 new cases daily. That’s a 72% increase from the previous week and a pandemic record.
Read the full Bloomberg News story here.
