Union Health Min disputes Maha Govt's claim, says it's not XE variant
A fifty-year-old film costume designer of South African origin, who arrived in Mumbai on February 10, has emerged as the country’s first patient to test for the Covid XE variant.
However, the Union Health Ministry differed with the Maharashtra Government’s claim that it has detected the country’s first XE variant of coronavirus from Mumbai during random genome sampling.
According to sources in the Union Health Ministry, the variant was analysed in detail by genomic experts who have inferred that the genomic constitution of this variant did not correlate with the genomic picture of XE variant. “It’s not an XE variant,” they said.
A senior BMC medical official said here on Wednesday that the woman of South African origin tested positive for Covid XE, considered 10 per cent more transmissible mutant than any strain of Covid-19, during routine testing carried in a private suburban laboratory.
The woman, whose identity has not been disclosed yet, was part of a film shooting crew that arrived here from South Africa. She had no previous international history and had been administered both doses of Comirnaty vaccines. She tested negative for Covid-19 on her arrival in the country on February 10.
However, during routine testing done by Suburban Diagnostics on March 2, she was found positive. She was immediately quarantined in a room in the Hotel Taj Land’s End, Bandra, where another test was conducted on her the following day by Spice Health. She diagnosed negative in the second test.
First detected in the United Kingdom, the new XE variant — as per the notification issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) last week — is a mutant hybrid of two other Omicron versions BA.1 And BA.2, and accounts for a minuscule fraction of cases globally. The WHO has said the new mutant is around 10 per cent more transmissible than the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron.
Mumbai Municipal Commissioner IS Chahal said in view of her recent international travel, the BMC had sent this sample for genome sequencing along with 230 other positive samples of which one was found XE variants, one Capa, and the rest are Omicron BA.2 variants.
Even after the woman tested positive for the Covid XE variant, her condition was described as asymptomatic and without co-morbidities. "All her high-risk contacts are negative and there is no cause for worry," Chahal said.
Earlier in the day, the Mumbai civic body BMC said the patient, a 50-year-old woman, who has been found to have the XE variant is fully vaccinated against the virus and has shown no symptoms so far. She also suffers from no comorbidities.
In its latest sero survey report, the BMC said of the 230 samples sent for sero survey from patients from Mumbai, 21 were subsequently hospitalised. However, none needed oxygen support or intensive care, the report said.
Of those hospitalised, nine had taken both doses of the vaccine. The rest were all unvaccinated. None of the patients who had taken their first jab had to be hospitalised, the report said.
As many as 228 samples were found infected with the Omicron variant. One tested positive for the XE variant while the other for the Kappa variant.
As per the initial studies, the XE variant has a growth rate of 9.8 per cent over that of BA.2, also known as the stealth variant because of its ability to evade detection. The XE variant has also been detected in Thailand and New Zealand. The WHO has said further data is required before more can be said about the mutation.
It said, "Early-day estimates indicate a community growth rate advantage of 10 per cent as compared to BA.2. However this finding requires further confirmation. XE belongs to the Omicron variant until significant differences in transmission and disease characteristics, including severity, may be reported."
There is no evidence XE is any more serious in disease severity, with all Omicron variants so far shown to be less severe, said the global health agency.
Meanwhile, India recorded 1,086 new cases of the coronavirus, along with 71 deaths due to the infection in the past 24 hours. According to the data shared by the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday, India saw a total of 1,198 discharges in the last 24 hours, taking the total recovery rate at around 98.76 per cent and total recovery data reached to 4,24,97,567.
The total active cases of Covid-19 in India have declined to 11,871 (0.03%) the Ministry data said.
