An expert from the World Health Organization (WHO) believes that the “deltacron” type of coronavirus could arise not because of a mutation of the virus itself, but because of an error in the laboratory. This statement was made by the head of the WHO technical group Maria van Kerkhove.
On Twitter, she explained that the new strain of COVID-19, which was “fixed” by Cypriot doctors, is most likely the result of contamination of the sample or equipment during the sequencing of the coronavirus genome.
Given this, the WHO expert urges not to use the term “deltacron”, as it implies a mutation of the virus, which did not happen.
Recall that scientists at the University of Cyprus Leontios Kostrikis on January 8 said that they had identified a new variant of the coronavirus, supposedly a hybrid of the already known strains “delta” and “omicron”. The researchers gave their “find” the name “deltacron”.
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