A mutant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been found by two employees of TritonLabs – molecular biologists Kitti Tátrai and András Benedek – that contain both spike protein mutations characteristic of the alpha and delta variants. According to a statement from the private health company
the variant is completely new and is already on the WHO’s “Variant Under Monitoring” list, where potentially dangerous variants are recorded.
The two colleagues found a mutation that has not been reported in Hungary so far.
They note that when a certain variant is described, it does not mean that it could no longer mutate, evolve. Thus, it is possible that several mutations are present in a new variant at the same time, which have already been described in different variants. The above-mentioned case and the virus variant detected for the first time in Hungary are also such.
“At first I thought I had spoiled something… We routinely detect the virus in the lab, but my colleague András Benedek and I are also working to determine which virus variant is present in the positive sample. At the time of our discovery, we were just working to have a proper new methodology so that we could determine exactly what variant we were dealing with. We were working on the validation of this method at that time. That is why my first thought was that I spoiled something, as such a variant (C.36.3) has not been described in Hungary yet ”
– Kitti Tatras began.
Then she added:
“We repeated the experiment again – Andras did it completely independently of me and got the same result. At that time, however, we could not yet say that it was that particular variant, we could only state that a mutation characteristic of that variant was present in the sample. Professionally, there is a slight difference in this ”.
This variant was first identified in Thailand from positive samples of Egyptian immigrants. As of July 24, 2021, it was found in a total of 1,403 positive samples worldwide.
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