After Mumbai's civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claimed on Wednesday about the presence of XE variant in a patient, the Government denied its claim. The sources close to the Union Health Ministry have said that the genome sequencing of the patient's sample does not indicate the presence of the XE variant.
The sources said that FastQ files of the sample, which is said to be the 'XE' variant were analyzed by INSACOG genomic experts and it doesn’t correlate with a genomic picture of the 'XE' variant.
Recently the World Health Organization had informed in its report that the XE variant can be more infectious than any variant of the corona.
XE is a 'recombinant' mutation of BA'1 and BA.2 Omicron. 'Recombinant' mutations arise when a patient becomes infected with several variants of the corona.
Also, the World Health Organization said that the new variant XE is 10 percent more infectious than Omicron's sub-variant BA.2.
Also read: Trending on Twitter: Haldiram lands in controversy as reporter asks questions regarding Urdu text on the packaging
BMC said that 376 samples were tested. 230 of them are residents of Mumbai. Out of these 230 patients in Mumbai, 21 had to be hospitalized. None of the patients who had received only the first dose of the vaccine was hospitalized.
Of those who took both doses of the vaccine, 9 were hospitalized. 12 patients with no vaccine doses were hospitalized. Of the 21 patients admitted to the hospital, none required oxygen or intensive care.