BENGALURU: The health department has not received any cases of the new XE variant of Omicron in the state, Commissioner for Health and Family Welfare D Randeep said here on Friday. Anxiety prevails among citizens after the Mumbai civic body reported finding the XE strain of Covid in the sample of a 50-year-old South African costume designer with international travel history, who tested positive over a month ago.
The Union health ministry has clarified, though, that genome sequencing of the patient’s sample does not indicate the presence of XE. Randeep said that so far, they have not received any suspected cases of XE variant in the state, and not sent any suspected samples of XE for genome sequencing either.
Asked if the state is taking additional precautions in screening international passengers in the wake of the report on XE, he said, “It is not a new variant of concern. It is just a recombinant, so people need not be anxious.”
The XE variant is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2 strains of Omicron, and is said to be 10 per cent more transmissible. The XE variant was first detected in the United Kingdom, and is said to have been detected in New Zealand and Thailand too.
So far, in Karnataka, genome sequencing of selected representative samples has confirmed that of 3,775 samples that tested positive for Omicron, 947 samples were positive for BA1.1.529 variant of Omicron, and 99 samples tested positive for BA.1 variant of Omicron. This year alone, 2,729 samples tested positive for the BA.2 variant of Omicron.