India's 1st Covid variant XE case in Mumbai: Civic body and Centre differ

BMC declares results of 11th genome sequencing done by it. One sample tested positive for XE strain, another tested positive for Kappa variant

India’s first case of the XE variant of the coronavirus has been detected in Mumbai.

The Union Health Ministry, however, said that the sample which is being said to be ‘XE’ variant was analysed in detail by genomic experts of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), who have inferred that the genomic constitution of this variant does not correlate with the genomic picture of 'XE' variant.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) declared results of the 11th genome sequencing done by the civic body. One sample tested positive for the XE variant of Sars-CoV-2 virus and another has tested positive for the Kappa variant.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has flagged off a Covid variant of mutation called XE found in the UK. The global health body has suggested that this could be more transmissible than any Covid strain so far. XE is a combination or recombinant of both sub-variants (BA.1 and BA.2) of Omicron.

A 50-year old fully vaccinated woman has tested positive for the XE variant, and is asymptomatic. Some reports claimed that she tested negative on arrival, and eventually tested positive in a routine test done in a city laboratory on March 2. She was quarantined subsequently in a city hotel.

The BMC had tested 230 samples, of which 99.13 or 228 samples tested positive for the Omicron strain.  The Omicron variant had led the third wave of infections in India.

The XE variant was initially spotted in the UK around the beginning of this year, and the country has reported more than 600 XE cases so far.

Indian experts, however, did not seem too worried about recombinant variants of Omicron.

E Sreekumar, chief scientific officer, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology said that such new variants may cause some infections in the population, but a ‘wave’ or sudden huge spike is unlikely. “Also, the disease may be mild to moderate and not lead to severe cases as the Indian population has already been exposed to the Omicron variant largely,” Sreekumar said.

Most cases of Omicron in India were of BA.2, Anurag Agrawal, director, Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology had told Business Standard. “The Omicron wave India witnessed was mostly BA.2. That is different from ‘Deltacron’ – a wrong term used to describe rare recombinants. Omicron is BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3,” Agarwal had said.