Vadodara:Gujarat on Saturday confirmed the second case of the new XE variant of Omicron just a few days after its first occurrence in Maharashtra's Mumbai, as informed by a state official. The patient who has tested positive reportedly traveled from Mumbai to Gujarat a few days back along with his wife, who has however tested negative for the virus.
The patient is a 67-year-old and was admitted to the Gotri Hospital in Gujarat after experiencing symptoms of the new form of the Coronavirus. The couple reportedly quarantined themselves in a hotel in Vadodara after seeing the symptoms and got themselves tested in a private hospital on March 12 and tested positive in the results.
Medical Officer of Health, Vadodara Municipal Corporation, Devesh Patel said that "a man from Santa Cruz in Mumbai, had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 12 during his visit to Vadodara. His wife was accompanying him. According to the results of his sample's genome sequencing received on Friday, he is found to have been infected with the new mutant XE, a sub-variant of Omicron," he said. The man had visited Vadodara for some work and stayed at a hotel. He had provided the local address of his relatives for his sample results and returned to Mumbai soon after getting tested in Vadodara. No further status of the patient is known to local authorities, Patel added.
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Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a warning against the new variant of Omicron first detected in the UK, and suggested that it could be more transmissible than any COVID-19 strain so far. The XE variant is a combination or a recombinant of both sub-variants -- BA.1 and BA.2 -- of Omicron. the WHO clarified.
After the first case of the variant detected in Mumbai, the Mumbai civic body officials had said that a woman who had arrived from South Africa in February-end and tested positive in March has been infected by the XE variant, but the health ministry has not confirmed it to be so. The ministry on Wednesday evening said that present evidence does not yet indicate that it is a case of the XE variant.
"Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) experts examined the FastQ files of the sample and have inferred that the genomic composition of this variant which infected the Mumbai woman does not correspond with the genomic composition of the XE variant," an official source had said, adding that INSACOG is conducting a genomic analysis of the Mumbai sample. The sources had earlier said that genomic analysis of the XE variant sample from Gujarat is underway and results are expected soon.
Commenting on the matter, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said that Omicron sub-variant XE is not lethal and the only case detected in the state of an elderly man is asymptomatic. Talking to media persons in Jalna, Tope said, "The man had arrived from London on March 6 and came in contact with two Britishers. On March 11, he experienced a mild fever. On March 12, he was tested during his stay in Vadodara and the sample was sent for genome sequencing to the Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre."
(With agency inputs)
