United K: Scientists have discovered what they call a heavily mutated hybrid of two variants of SARS-CoV-2 that could have implications for fighting the global pandemic, New Scientist reports.
Radio Rebelde publishes that the new coronavirus mutation appeared in California after the British Kentish strain and another lineage found in the United States merged within an infected person.
The new, yet unnamed variant has only been detected once, but scientists fear there are more cases. Also, experts are concerned that the finding presents mutations that appear to allow it to spread faster and escape some of the immunity produced by vaccines or past infections.
The hybrid was discovered by scientist Bette Korber at Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico). Recently, in a web seminar by the New York Academy of Sciences, the expert assured that the evidence for the combination of two variants is quite clear in its database of viral genomes in the United States.