Gujarat reported its first case of XE earlier in the day, making it the second such suspected case to be reported in India so far.
Written by Shubhangi Gupta | Edited by Chandrashekar Srinivasan, New Delhi
As the health community looks for more information about XE, the new variant of coronavirus, the India’s Sars-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG) has said it is keeping a close watch on the strain with a focus on hospitalisation and incidents of severity. The consortium – set up by the centre to study and monitor genome sequencing of circulating strains of Covid-19 in India – also said there was no reason to panic.
“Unless this sequence is verified after isolating the virus, we will not be able to comment on it. We will have to wait to know whether it is different or not,” news agency ANI quoted sources as saying.
Gujarat reported its first case of XE earlier in the day, making it the second such suspected case to be reported in India so far. Earlier Mumbai’s civic body said it had detected a case of the new variant, but doubts were raised over the infecting strain.
“We are in touch with the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Biotechnology research centre found the mutation in the sample… that’s why genome sequencing is required, after which the sample was sent to Kolkata where they have confirmed the sample as an XE variant. We have got confirmation,” said Manoj Agarwal, additional chief secretary of health and family welfare for the government of Gujarat.
He further explained the person found positive for infection travelled from Maharashtra to Baroda in Gujarat.
“A 66-year-old person who travelled to Vadodara’s Gotri from Mumbai was staying in a private hotel and showed symptoms of COVID-19 and he tested positive. But he went back by road to Mumbai. We have done contact tracing of three persons and all of them tested negative,” he added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) had suggested that the XE variant — a combination or recombinant of both sub-variants (BA.1 and BA.2) of Omicron — could be more transmissible than any Covid strain so far.
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