New ‘Deltacron’ And Combined Omicron Cases Detected In Australia!

Cases of the new ‘Deltacron’ Covid 19 variant and combined Omicron variants have emerged in Australia, with Queensland Health reporting 12 cases of Deltacron late on Friday and NSW recording one case of Deltacron and one combined case of the two Omicron variants, earlier the same day.

The new Omicron strain combines the BA.1 and BA.2 strains of Omicron, whilst Deltacron is a combination of genetic material from the two most prominent strains of Covid 19, Delta and Omicron.

Authorities have labeled the new variants as “recombinant”, occurring when two separate strains of a virus merge to form a new strain, and suggest that there is no evidence either of the new variants are immune to vaccines or will cause an increase in the severity of symptoms.

“Recombination usually creates a new virus that isn’t viable, as the mixing of different genes can interfere with the virus’s ability to make the proteins it needs to survive," said Biochemistry Professor, Luke O’Neill.

“But sometimes one does survive, and that appears to be what’s happened with Deltacron,” he said.

Recombinant variants have been detected overseas, with Deltacron first emerging in Europe in February, spreading to the UK and the USA.

This comes as 600 cases of another recombinant strain, the XE strain – a combination of the BA.1 and BA.2 strains of Omicron, have been reported in the UK.

“So far, the combined version of Omicron’s BA.1 and BA.2 detected in NSW has not been identified as XE but further testing is under way,” NSW Health Pathology’s Professor, Dominic Dwyer, said.

Associate Professor, Stuart Turville, a virologist at the Kirby Institute, suggests that recombinant strains are likely when “we see overlapping waves of variants such as Delta and Omicron”.

“Over time smaller changes within the virus will likely drive the virus to become more transmissible. Time will tell if a recombination event gives rise to a variant that is more transmissible,” he said.