Mumbai on Wednesday reported the first case of the highly-contagious coronavirus variant, XE, in India. According to the World Health Organisation, the hybrid strain may be the most transmissible version yet.
new versionWhich was first reported in the UK, appears to be 10% more permeable than the BA.2 sub-version of Omicron, the WHO said.
Preliminary studies state that the XE variant has a 9.8% growth rate compared to BA.2, also known as the stealth variant due to its ability to evade detection.
Here are 5 key points about the XE variant:
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a statement that a hybrid of two Omicron strains – Ba.1 and Ba.2 – was detected in a 50-year-old woman who had traveled to the city from South Africa in February.
The asymptomatic patient did not have any disease and was released after being diagnosed almost a month later in March, the Mumbai civic body said.
Out of 230 samples sent for genome sequencing from Mumbai, one was XE variant, while the other was Kappa variant. Another 228 samples are from the Omron version of Kovid-19.
WHO states that XE mutations are currently being tracked as part of the Omicron variant. Symptoms of Omicron include fever, sore throat, sore throat, cough and cold, skin irritation and discoloration, and gastrointestinal distress.
-XE is a “recombinant” mutant of the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains. When a patient is infected with multiple variants of COVID-19, recombinant mutations emerge.
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