Has Omicron's XE Recombinant Variant of COVID-19 Reached India?

Mumbai's civic body BMC on Wednesday claimed that a case of the new XE variant of coronavirus has been detected in the city.

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Hours later the Union Health Ministry denied the claims, saying the genome sequencing of the patient's sample does not indicate the presence of the XE variant.

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The BMC said that the patient is a 50-year-old female who had arrived from South Africa on February 10, 2022, and had tested positive for XE.

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She is also said to have been double vaccinated and tested negative for COVID-19 on arrival in India.

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But on March 2, 2022, during routine testing, she was found to be positive and was quarantined at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai.

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The new variant XE is a mutant hybrid of two versions of Omicron - BA.1 and BA.2 and accounts for a small fraction of cases across the globe.

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