India’s first case of covid-19 new XE variant was reported in Mumbai on April 6th, told Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in a media release. A case of the Kappa variant has also been detected.
The new variant may be more transmissible than any strain of Covid-19, WHO said last week. However, Official sources from Union Health Ministry disagreed saying that the present evidence does not declare that it is a XE variant.
Additional BMC Commissioner Suresh Kakani told that the patient had a foreign travel history and put the patient’s sample for genome sequences. Out of 230 samples, 228 had omicron BA2, one had kappa and one was detected with XE.
BMC health officer Gomare confirmed that Mumbai has achieved the full vaccinated milestone, more than 14 months after the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the country.
The Mumbai patient is a 50-years old costume designer who returned from South Africa in February. Later, she was tested positive on March 2, the BMC said.
What is XE Variant?
XE variant is a mutation of BA’1 and BA.2 omicron strains. It is a recombinant mutation that emerges when a patient is infected by multiple variants of coronavirus.
The new variant mixes up with their genetic material and forms a new mutation during replication.
The WHO has said that the new variant appears to be 10% more transmissible than the previous BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron.
The number of cases added to the tally stood on Friday at 28. Civic officials said that the cases detected in a day had gone over the 70-mark for the first time since March 20.
