Cyprus scientist says 'Deltacron' Covid variant came from plane passengers

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A form of the coronavirus that resembles Delta and Omicron mixed together was first detected among airline passengers who arrived in Cypriot airports, the chief scientist behind the discovery has said.

In an interview with The National, Dr Leondios Kostrikis said his team’s findings suggested the variant, nicknamed Deltacron, was circulating in other countries.

“The only thing we know for sure is that we have identified Deltacron in people coming from airports,” he said on Sunday.

“I don’t think this variant was created in Cyprus.”

The variant features “Omicron-like genetic signatures within the Delta genomes,” he said.

About 25 cases have been discovered since it was identified by a team led by Dr Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, in collaboration with the republic’s Ministry of Health.

Dr Kostrikis said there was a “higher frequency of this mutation” in people who were admitted to hospital but that it was too soon to say whether it was more transmissible or deadly.

“We were monitoring the presence of Omicron to see how likely it was to become the dominant strain of the virus and takeover from other variants,” he said.

“The predominant strain in Cyprus is Omicron, with close to 70 per cent of new diagnoses identified as this particular variant.

“It is taking over and replacing other Delta strains of the virus.”

Dr Kostrikis has previously studied the transmission of HIV.

“Because of the different strains with different characteristics of Omicron amino acid polymorphis, this suggests it is a result of evolutionary pressure rather than a combination effect,” he said.

The study analysed about 200 people a week, isolated from the airports, hospitals and diagnostic centres, for a panoramic sample of the circulation of the virus in the country.

As part of this process, scientists at the University of Cyprus completed comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of all the sequences to see how the virus had mutated.

Although some samples were classified as Delta, they also showed the amino acid mutations seen in samples of Omicron.

The university is in contact with clinicians who can cross-check reported symptoms in those with Deltacron, to identify common symptoms and vaccination records.

Results could give an insight into any new symptoms associated with the variant, or how it responds to boosters.

Since Omicron emerged in early December, patients with the variant have reported milder symptoms than those seen earlier in the pandemic.

They include a cough, congestion, runny nose and fatigue, but unlike the Delta variant, many patients do not lose their senses of taste or smell.

But while Omicron seems less severe than the Delta, especially among vaccinated people, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against treating it lightly.

“Omicron is hospitalising people, and it’s killing people,” he said recently.

“In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick that it is overwhelming health systems around the world.”

In common with many places, Cyprus has reported a surge in infections in recent weeks.

On December 26, 912 new cases of Covid-19 were diagnosed in the country compared with 5,244 on January 7.

“When we performed statistical analysis, we found that this particular strain [Deltacron] was mostly found in hospitalised patients,” Dr Kostrikis said.

“So there was a higher frequency of this mutation in hospitalised people, and it was not random.

“The only thing we can interpret is there is a link, although we do not yet know the dynamics.

“The fact we were finding sequences with different numbers of Omicron mutations indicates that there is an independent evolutionary pressure in an ancestral Delta strain to acquire Omicron mutations.”