Of the 230 Covid-infected patients, one has been detected with the XE strain while another with the Kappa variant, the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation said in a statement
A health worker in protective suit collects mouth swab of a traveler to test for COVID-19 outside a train station in Bengaluru. AP
The first case of the new Omicron variant, XE, was detected in Mumbai on Wednesday. Of the 230 COVID-infected patients, one has been detected with the XE strain while another with the Kappa variant, the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation said in a statement.
A woman who arrived from South Africa in February was found to have this Omicron sub-variant, officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said, adding that she was asymptomatic and recovered from the infection.
Touted as more transmissible by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the XE is a recombinant variant, which means it is a mutant hybrid of the two previous versions of the Omicron variant, BA.1 and BA.2.
Let’s find out more about COVID-19’s XE variant:
What is the Omicron XE variant?
The new strain was first detected in the UK on 19 January and more than 600 cases have been reported and confirmed since then.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a warning against a new mutant ‘XE’ variant of Omicron, that may be more transmissible than any strain of COVID-19 seen before, according to a report by express.co.uk.
This new variant is a recombinant strain, meaning it is a mutant hybrid of the two previous versions of the Omicron variant, BA.1 and BA.2, which has spread across the world when it first became a variant of concern, it said.
Recombinants can emerge when multiple variants infect the same person at the same time, allowing the variants to interact during replication, mix up their genetic material, and form new combinations, a paper published in the British Medical Journal notes.
There are currently three hybrid or recombinant viruses that have been detected: XD, XE, XF. The two different combinations of Delta and BA.1 are XD and XF. The third is XE.
How dangerous is the XE variant?
A BMC official said the XE variant appears to be 10 per cent more transmissible than the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron. So far, BA.2 was deemed to be the most contagious of all the COVID-19 variants.
As per the WHO, BA.2, which is a subvariant of the Omicron strain, is the most dominant strain of the virus, being 86 per cent of all sequenced cases attributed to it.
As per the initial studies, the XE variant has a growth rate of 9.8 per cent over that of BA.2, also known as the stealth variant because of its ability to evade detection.
The global health body noted that until they can detect “significant differences in transmission and disease characteristics, including severity”, XE will remain categorised as a part of the Omicron variant.
“WHO continues to closely monitor and assess the public health risk associated with recombinant variants, alongside other SARS-CoV-2 variants, and will provide updates as further evidence becomes available,” the report continued.
As the XE variant is still new, it is yet to be ascertained that it comes with any new symptoms.
According to a report by Independent, the most reported symptoms of the original strain of Omicron are much like a cold, especially in people who’ve been vaccinated, including running noses, sneezing and sore throats.
The original strain of the coronavirus generally led to fever, coughs and a loss of taste or smell.
However, the UK’s National Health Service updated the list of symptoms on Monday.
According to nhs.uk the signs of Covid-19 that people should also look out for include: shortness of breath, feeling tired or exhausted, an aching body, a headache, a sore throat, a blocked or runny nose, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, feeling sick or being sick.
With inputs from agencies
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