'XE tag' has been hastily given, says Centre

A Maharashtra government report said the XE variant was found in a 50year-old female, a South African national who came to India on February 10 from South Africa.

- Malathy Iyer

"She was tested on February 27 for Covid-19 and found positive. Her lab sample has been referred to Kasturba Hospital Central laboratory for WGS (whole genome sequencing). It has been found to be a new XE variant in initial sequencing," said surveillance officer Dr Pradip Awate. He added that the woman was asymptomatic and had tested negative on repeat testing. The BMC said the Omicron-XE variant was found in one of 230 samples sequenced at its new genome sequencing laboratory at Kasturba Hospital.

The XE variant is a combination of the BA.1 and BA.2 strains of Omicron and found to be responsible for enhanced viral transmission in countries such as the UK.