What happens when Omicron and Delta variants combine? Here's what WHO says

New Delhi, Mar 23: A combination of the Omicron and Delta coronavirus variants is known as a recombinant, said World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr Maria Van Kekhove, Covid-19 Technical Lead at WHO, recently said that they are aware of this recombinant. "It's a combination of Delta AY.4 and Omicron BA.1. It has been detected but there are very low levels of this detection. The recombinant itself this is something that is expected given that a large amount of circulation the intense amount of circulation that we saw in both Omicron and Delta."

She said that given the sheer number of changes and mutations within Omicron it was much easier for researchers and scientists, public health professionals, people who are studying the genome to be able to detect these recombinants.

Van Kekhove added, "We have not seen any change in the epidemiology with this recombinant. We haven't seen any change in severity. But there are many studies that are underway. Unfortunately, we do expect to see recombinants because this is what viruses do. They change over time."

The WHO has been aware of this because of its Technical Advisory Group for Virus Evolution. "So this is something that's on our radar. It's something that we are monitoring. So, it's really critical that we have testing and it's really critical that we continue with sequencing that we have good geographic representation of sequencing around the world and that the systems that have been put in place for surveillance, for testing, for sequencing, right now be reinforced. These are the systems that we have in place."

It comes days after a recombinant COVID strain was detected from Israel that was a hybrid of Delta and Omicron. As per Livemint, 17 cases of recombinant cases have been detected in the US and Europe. Similar cases have been found in seven states in India.