Mumbai Reports India’s First Case Of New COVID Variant XE; Know Who Got Infected

Mumbai: India’s first case of the XE variant of coronavirus was reported from Mumbai on Wednesday.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) informed that one case had been found of XE variant and another of Kappa variant in its 11th genome sequencing study.

The person who tested positive for XE variant is a fully vaccinated 50-year-old woman with no comorbidity and is asymptomatic, BMC officials said.

She arrived from South Africa on February 10 and had no prior travel history. On arrival, she had tested negative for the virus.

A costume designer, she tested positive in a routine test on March 2 and was quarantined in a hotel. The day day after, she tested negative in a another test.

The XE variant was first detected in the United Kingdom.

The new strain is a mutant hybrid of two versions of Omicron — BA.1 and BA.2 — and accounts for a small fraction of cases across the world right now.

However, World Health Organization has said that XE mutation appeared to be around 10 per cent more transmissible than the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron, which was considered the most contagious variant of COVID till date.