Recombination between SARS-CoV-2 "strains": The possibility of the emergence of more or less virulent "strains" of the virus

To explore the possibility of genomic recombination a total of 2,611 SARS-CoV-2 sequences were mined from the NCBI Virus resource. Multiple sequence alignment and recombination analysis of these sequences were performed using MAFFET and Recombination detection program (RDP) respectively, to determine the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 viral sequences. We report for the first time, 3 novel recombination events between SARS-CoV-2 sequences, with one event having occurred in 65% of the sequences analysed. Bearing in mind that the prerequisite for recombination is the occurrence of two or more viral sequences in the same reservoir, biological niche or host at the same time, we hypothesized that there was co-infection and or superinfection facilitating recombination in the primary hosts prior to infection of the secondary hosts with the recombinant sequences. Recombination between the SARS-CoV-2 sequences poses the likelihood of the emergence of new more or less virulent “strains” of the virus. We believe that the future of science lies in our ability to be able to use computational based methods to predict the genetic sequences of infectious agents of the next epidemics. The addition of more SARS-CoV-2 sequences has a bearing on our understanding of its origin, hence more SARS-CoV-2 sequences in public databases are needed to elucidate our understanding of this family of viruses.