The different Coronavirus variants are now known: UK, South African, Brazilian, Californian, and Breton. But now, Covid-19 “recombinants” are emerging. A not very reassuring word to speak about hybrid viruses, coming from two different variants.
About fifteen of them have been found in the United-Kingdom and are being closely monitored by British scientists. According to results of this first study released this mid-March, these mutations of the virus were predictable and will have no “immediate consequences on the trajectory of the epidemic”, the authors of the study said.
As explained by Sorbonne University professor in virology Vincent Maréchal in Le Parisien, these recombinants are chimeras, “the outcome of crossing two parental viruses”.
In concrete words, once two “parental” viruses have infected the same person, and then the same cell, they “exchange” pieces of their RNA over the course of reproductions, leading to recombinants.
Even though such a process is common for coronaviruses, the British scientists yet fear even more transmissible virus might break out, especially when it comes to human to animal transmission.
