Reports that a hybrid Covid variant of Omicron and Delta is spreading across the world are not yet a cause for concern, scientists have said.
Fears about ‘Deltacron’ were raised again this week after the World Health Organization announced the super-mutant had been spotted in France, Holland and Denmark.
But UK Health Security Agency bosses who have been tracking the strain for weeks have spotted just 32 domestic cases.
While the hybrid variant has shown it can spread between people, experts and health authorities have insisted it is not growing at concerning rate and is unlikely to replace Omicron.
Professor Lawrence Young, a microbiologist from the University of Warwick, told MailOnline it was unlikely to result in a rise in severe disease.
‘Given waning immunity in the population and the removal of all restrictions, it is likely that Deltacron will spread but is unlikely to result in severe disease,’ he said.
‘The BA.2 cousin of Omicron is currently spreading in the England and is more transmissible than the original Omicron variant.’
He added that while we don’t know how Deltacron will compete with Omicron there was no room for complacency and underlined the importance of continuing Covid vaccination and getting the elderly and vulnerable a second booster.
Also commenting, Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, told the The Times it would be hard to see how the hybrid could outcompete the now dominant Omicron.
‘Omicron replaced Delta so a hybrid is a step back and unlikely to be ‘better’ in any appreciable way,’ he said.
He added that unless monitoring shows that it could be a threat ‘it doesn’t warrant particular attention’.
UKHSA have said they will continue monitoring Deltacron closely as it does with all variants.
While Deltacron cases are in the UK, scientists and health officials have both said it is not a particular cause for concern (pictured commuters on the London underground last month)
So far there has been no evidence that the hybrid variant make people more severely ill than other variants and likewise there are no signs Covid vaccines are less effective against it.
Even if Deltacron cases were to start to increase rapidly the UK has high levels of immunity against both its parent strains thanks to uptake of Covid jabs and due to previous infections.
Official data indicates nine in 10 eligible Britons have had at least one Covid vaccine and two thirds have had three.
The hybrid of Omicron and Delta first emerged January 7, in a person who had both variants at the same time.
Such combinations of different viruses can occur in such circumstances in a process called viral recombination.
This can occur if viruses from both strains infected the same cell which enables them to potentially swap their genetic code and make a new version of the virus.
However, there is no guarantee that such a new version is any more harmful or virulent than its parents.
This week the WHO warned Deltacron was starting to spread across Europe and it is also believed to have reached the US.
WHO officials have said they are preparing a report into Delatacron which they plan to release in the near future.
The latest UKHSA report on Covid, released just yesterday, found that of the 1,195 Covid samples sequenced 99.9 per cent were of the Omicron lineage with the remainder being of Delta ancestry.
Omicron variant BA.2 continues to have a growth advantage over other versions of the Covid virus, the report also adds.
In other Covid news today a report from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) detailed how the outbreak is starting to grow again, with Northern Ireland, Scotland, London and East England recording the highest rates.
ONS analysts estimate one in 13 people in Northern Ireland were carrying the virus on any given day in the week to March 5 — nearly as many as at the height of Omicron.
Covid is now more prevalent in Scotland than at any other point in the pandemic, with one in 18 Scots positive in the first week of March, or 5.7 per cent of the entire population.
Overall in England the ONS estimates that 2.07million (one in 25) people were infected on March 5, but in the East, London and South East, the rate is closer to one in 20.
The surveillance report also found infections were rising in England before all Covid laws were lifted on Freedom Day, suggesting the transition towards ‘living with Covid’ is not solely to blame for the latest surge.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk