Testing of Mumbai COVID patient sample does not reveal any XE variant

The Kolkata-based National Institute of Biomedical Genomics said it was not the Xe variant, Dr NK Arora, chairman of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group and co-chair of INSACOG, said in an interview.

Samples from a 50-year-old COVID patient who returned from South Africa in February were sent to several INSACOG laboratories to validate the presence of the XE variant. “When the BMC claimed that the XE variant was detected in Mumbai, it seemed suspicious to us. We have alerted all our channels. When the new mutants are described, at least three tests have been conducted. The layers are done. Tests conducted by the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics confirmed that it was the XM or XJ variant from Omicron’s X-series.’ Arora said. The lab recently submitted its report to INSACOG.

INASCOG followed the data triangulation strategy to reconfirm the case claimed by BMC on a fast-track basis within 24-48 hours.

The samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology and the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics for quality assurance testing by experts at three levels.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Omicron strain, which is spreading worldwide, has several sub-lineages.

The XE variant is a recombinant of the BA.1 and BA.2 sub-lineages.

“The Omicron variant has four sub-types, BA.1, BA.2, BA.3 and BA.4. Of these, BA.1 and BA.2 are the major strains in India. The basic characteristic of these two sub-types is that they have too many breakpoints as part of natural biological phenomena. When they broke up, they began to circulate and randomly met each other, resulting in the origin of the entire X-series, which that is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2. Therefore, the Xe variant is one of those recombinants,” Arora explained.

Earlier, WHO reported that the XE version has the advantage of increasing by 10%.

Arora also said that as of now there is no confirmed case for the XE variant in India.