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Berlin researchers withdraw study on the origin of omicron

The specialist journal "Science" and a team led by Jan Felix Drexler from the Charité in Berlin have withdrawn a publication on the development of the corona variant Omikron.

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Berlin researchers withdraw study on the origin of omicron

The specialist journal "Science" and a team led by Jan Felix Drexler from the Charité in Berlin have withdrawn a publication on the development of the corona variant Omikron. According to the study, published in early December, omicron had formed gradually over several months in different African countries. "According to the latest findings, parts of the statements made in the study about contamination in test samples can no longer be verified without reasonable doubt," said the Charité on Tuesday.

Shortly after publication, other scientists had raised doubts about the genome sequences. In a subsequent post-analysis of residual samples, impurities were found. "The continuing statement of the publication that viruses with omicron sequence characteristics already existed before official detection in South Africa is based on consistent PCR detections from laboratories in various African countries," writes the Charité. However, the individual virus evolution stages could no longer be unequivocally reconstructed due to the impurities that had occurred.

According to their own statements, dozens of researchers examined a total of 13,000 samples from 22 African countries for the “Science” study. Since the high number of samples to be checked makes a timely correction impossible, the entire publication has now been withdrawn, writes the Charité.

Just a few days after the study was published, Richard Neher, a proven expert on virus mutations from the University of Basel, expressed skepticism about it. "I'm not convinced," he wrote on Twitter. Certain of the researchers' data did not support their thesis of the gradual evolution of omicron.

Omicron has an unusually high number of around 30 amino acid changes in the important spike protein alone. The multitude of genetic changes led other experts to assume that the variant might have developed in a person with HIV or another form of immune deficiency. Another hypothesis assumes that omicrons developed in animals and then jumped back to humans.

The current study seemed to confirm the third possibility, writes Science itself in a post. It states: When screening thousands of older samples from COVID-19 patients from across Africa, the researchers found evidence of the variant in 25 patient samples from East and West Africa as early as August and September 2021, i.e. months before the virus broke out in southern Africa . The researchers sequenced the genomes of five of the Benin samples and found that they had some characteristics of Delta - the previously dominant variant - and some of Omicron. This indicated that it was an intermediate stage of evolution.

"Aha! Ten minutes of everyday knowledge" is WELT's knowledge podcast. Every Tuesday and Thursday we answer everyday questions from the field of science. Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Amazon Music, among others, or directly via RSS feed.

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