No need to panic, says NTAGI chief on new COVID variant XE

Amid scare over emerging COVID variant XE, NK Arora, the chief of National Technical Group on Immunization (NTAGI) has said that there is no need to panic as new Omicron variants like XE have not shown to cause severe disease or spread at a rapid speed.

The XE variant, which was recently detected in Gujarat and Maharashtra, is a combination of two prevalent Omicron variants – BA1 and BA2. It was first detected in England in January and is known to be 10 per cent more transmissible than the original virus.

“These variants will keep on occurring. Nothing to panic about as none of these are causing serious diseases or at the moment from Indian data it does not show a very rapid spread,” Arora told ANI.

The Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genome Consortium (INSACOG), which is also studying the course of the variant in India, keeping a tab on hospitalization and incidents of severity, has also said there is no need to panic.

“Unless this sequence is verified after isolating the virus, we will not be able to comment on it. We will have to wait to know whether it is different or not,” ANI quoted sources as saying.

The case was first detected in Gujarat. According to the state additional chief secretary of Health and Family Welfare department, Manoj Agarwal, the infected person had travelled from Maharashtra to Baroda.

“We are in touch with the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Biotechnology research entre found the mutation in the sample that’s why genome sequencing is required after which the sample was sent to Kolkata where they have confirmed the sample as an XE variant. We have got confirmation,” he said.