MUMBAI, APRIL 06: The global pandemic coronavirus has once again raised the concern as corona’s most lethal variant ‘XE’ has knocked in Mumbai. Apart from this, a patient infected with the kappa variant has been confirmed.
This has been detected in the eleventh report of the Genome Sequencing Trial released by the Mumbai Municipal Corporation on Wednesday.
According to information received from Mumbai Municipal Corporation, a total of 376 samples of Covid infected patients were tested as part of the 11th batch at BMC’s Kasturba Hospital and Pune-based National Institute of Virology.
Out of the total samples taken for genome sequencing, 230 samples were from Mumbai. Of these, 228 samples have been found from Omicron, while one of the kappa variant and one of the XE variant have been found.
However, patients with the new variant do not have any severe symptoms so far. Of the 230, 21 had to be hospitalized, but did not require oxygen support or an emergency. Among them, there were 12 people who did not take even a single dose of the vaccine.
XE is a hybrid mutant strain of Corona. The XE variant is said to be a hybrid strain of two Omicron sub-variants—BA.1 and BA.2. The first case of the XE variant was found in the UK on January 19. The sub-variant of XE Omicron may be about 10 percent more infectious than BA.2.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also expressed concern about the XE variant.
At present, research is going on regarding its lethality. Apart from XE, WHO is also eyeing another recombinant variant XD, which is a hybrid of Delta and Omicron. Most of its cases have been found in France, Denmark and Belgium.
Corona is completely under control in Mumbai. All restrictions have been lifted. However, there is still a threat of corona in many parts of the world. Mumbai Municipal Corporation has appealed to the people to be careful.
