It has been detected in France, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed the existence of the Deltacron recombinant of the Delta and Omicron coronavirus variants.
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“We are aware of this recombinant. It’s a combination of Delta AY.4 and Omicron BA.1,” WHO COVID-19 technical lead Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said in a March 9 media briefing.
Deltacron has been detected in France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, but the infectious disease epidemiologist said there are very low levels of this detection.
The technical lead said they have not observed a change in the epidemiology with the recombinant, particularly in terms of severity.
“Recombinant itself, this is something that is expected given the large amount of circulation, the intense amount of circulation that we saw with both Omicron and Delta,” Van Kerkhove said.
Delta and Omicron remain designated by WHO as variants of concern. This is defined by increased transmissibility, detrimental change in epidemiology, increased virulence, change in disease presentation, or decreased effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics.
“If we remember with the emergence of Omicron, in some countries the wave of Delta had already passed and so circulation was at a low level but in other countries in Europe, for example, Delta was still circulating at quite a high level when Omicron emerged,” the epidemiologist said.
She added that good surveillance and frequent changes and mutations within Omicron made it much easier for experts to detect the recombinants.
“So again, the pandemic is far from over. And not only do we need to focus on saving people’s lives and reducing severe disease and death. We also have to focus on reducing the spread,” Van Kerkhove concluded.
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