The evidence doesn’t suggest the presence of Covid XE mutant in India, government sources said on Wednesday and denied media reports that claimed the first case of the variant had been detected in the country, Trend reports citing Khaleej Times.
The government sources said that FastQ files of the sample, being said to be XE’variant, was analysed by INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium) which inferred that the genomic constitution of this variant doesn’t correlate with the genomic picture of ‘XE’.
The Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation had earlier in the day said that “one patient is affected by Kappa variant and another by XE variant based on regular testing of samples".
The World Health Organisation had recently said that a new Covid mutant XE has been found in the UK and noted that it may be more transmissible than the BA.2 sublineage of Covid-19.
However, the virologists in India have said that it is not clear that the variant is strong enough to cause another Covid wave in the country and have advised people to exercise caution and follow appropriate guidelines.