This new variant was created by a group of scientists from the University of Boston to understand the role played by the virus spike protein and measure the real danger this represents. The researchers at the prestigious university had created a hybrid strain by combining the Omicron variant’s spike protein with the original Wuhan strain ‘to help fight against future pandemics’.
According to scientists at the BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, 80 percent of mice infected with this hybrid died after being infected. Later they infected another batch of mice with the BA.1 Omicron variant and all of them survived.
«In K18-hACE2 mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80%” was reported in the study.
Researchers also found that the new strain is five times more infectious than Omicron.
Playing with fire or life?
According to the Daily Mail, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government Professor Shmuel Shapira said researchers were ‘playing with fire’, while chemist at Rutgers University Dr Richard Ebright slammed it as a ‘gain of function research’.
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Dr Ebright told the Daily Mail: “If we are to avoid a next lab-generated pandemic, it is imperative that oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research be strengthened.”
In response, the Boston Herald reports that the research was approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee and the Boston Public Health Commission.
