According to a study led by US analytics company Nference, there is a real chance that the Omikron variant of the coronavirus has acquired at least one of its mutations by picking up a piece of genetic material from another virus, the common cold virus. The news agency reports that Reuters.
In more and more countries, infections with the Omikron variant of the corona virus are being detected. Until today, not much is known about this new variant. Experts worldwide are therefore investigating the new variant. In addition, some researchers have already a striking conclusion The new corona variant may contain a piece of the common cold virus.
more contagious
The genetic sequence in the Omikron variant does not appear in previous versions of the coronavirus, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses, including those that cause the common cold, as well as in the human genome. at the researchers.
“By incorporating this particular fragment into itself, Omicron can make itself appear more ‘human’, which would help it evade an attack from the human immune system,” said Venky Soundararajan, a researcher at Nference.
This could mean that the virus is more easily transmissible, while causing only mild or asymptomatic disease. Scientists don’t yet know whether Omikron is more contagious than other variants, whether it causes more serious diseases or whether it will overtake Delta as the most common variant. It may take several weeks before we get answers to these questions.
New copies
Cells in the lungs and in the gastrointestinal tract may simultaneously harbor SARS-CoV-2 and common cold viruses, previous studies show. Such co-infection forms the basis for viral recombination, a process in which two different viruses in the same host cell interact and make copies of themselves, creating new copies that contain genetic material from both “parents”.
“This new mutation could have first appeared in a person infected with both pathogens,” Soundararajan said. The results of the study have yet to be tested by other scientists. Another hypothesis is that Omikron mutated in an animal host.
From World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Saturday that the Omikron variant has not yet resulted in a fatality.
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