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 spread across the world when it first became a variant of concern
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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.
Although experts have pointed out that there is no reason to panic, there are currently three hybrid or recombinant viruses have been detected XD, XE, XF. The two different combinations of Delta and BA.1 are XD and XF. The third is XE.
The XD is the hybrid of Delta and BA.1, a sublineage of the Omicron variant and has been found mostly in France, Denmark and Belgium.
According to reports, the new variant is 10 per cent more transmissible than the BA.2 subvariant, which is already the most contagious. 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.
While XE only accounts for a small fraction of the cases, its extremely high transmissibility could mean that it becomes the most dominant strain in the near future.
The WHO has recently issued a report outlining their initial findings of this potentially new variant of concern.
“The XE recombinant (BA.1-BA.2), was first detected in the UK on 19 January and less than 600 sequences have been reported and confirmed since,” the report said.
“Early-day estimates indicate a community growth rate advantage of 10 per cent as compared to BA.2, however, this finding requires further confirmation,” it added.
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.
The WHO report echoes the 11 March UK Health Security Agency report which said, “As of 22 March 2022, there are 637 XE cases in England. These are geographically distributed across England and increasing in number, with the first case detected via sequencing on 19 January 2022, and most cases in East of England, London, and the South East… The median growth rate is +9.8 per cent per week. Numbers were too small for the XE recombinant to be analysed by region.”
Susan Hopkins, UKHSA chief medical adviser, told South China Morning Post that XE had shown a variable growth rate but the agency could not yet confirm whether it had a true growth advantage. “So far there is not enough evidence to draw conclusions about transmissibility, severity or vaccine effectiveness.”
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