India's 1st case of Omicron's XE variant detected in Mumbai

India's first case of  Omicron's XE variant has been detected in Mumbai, civic body BMC said today. "Results of 11th test under the Covid virus genetic formula determination - 228 or 99.13% (230 samples) patients detected with Omicron. One patient is affected by the 'XE' variant and another is affected by the 'Kapa' variant of Covid-19,'' the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation was quoted as saying by the news agency ANI.

BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said that out of 376 samples that were tested by the Next Generation Genome Sequencing Lab at Kasturba Hospital of BMC and the National Institute of Virology at Pune, 230 were residents of Mumbai.

Mangala Gomare, executive health officer of the BMC, told PTI that the woman who was found to have contacted the XE variant had arrived from South Africa and tested positive for coronavirus infection three weeks after arriving. "She was asymptomatic and tested negative the next day," Gomare said.

The woman, who is a costume designer, was a member of a film shooting crew. She arrived from South Africa on February 10, 2022.

"She did not have any travel history prior to that. She had been vaccinated with both doses of the COMIRNATY vaccine," the official said, adding that she suffered from no co-morbidities.

On arrival in India she tested negative for COVID-19, but on March 2, she tested positive during routine testing. In the subsequent test, she tested negative.

She had been quarantined in a hotel rook during this period. As to whether it was the first case of the XE variant detected in India, BMC officials said they could not confirm this.

The World Health Organisation had said in its latest report and noted that XE may be more transmissible than the BA.2 sublineage of COVID-19. XE is recombinant of Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 sublineages of COVID-19. "The XE recombinant (BA.1-BA.2), was first detected in the United Kingdom on January 19 and >600 sequences have been reported and confirmed since," the WHO said.