Mumbai, 07 April 2022,(KAT) : The first case of the Omicron XE variant was detected in Mumbai on Wednesday, BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said. The officer added that out of 376 samples that were tested by the Next Generation Genome Sequencing Lab at Kasturba Hospital of BMC and the National Institute of Virology at Pune, 230 were residents of Mumbai.
According to the details shared by the BMC, one of the 230 patients, whose samples were tested, died. It later emerged that she died due to a stomach disorder. Only nine of those who took both the doses of COVID-19 vaccine were hospitalized, while 12 of those who were unvaccinated, were taken to hospitals. None of the 21 patients needed oxygen supply, the authorities said."This was the 11th batch of testing in the genome sequencing lab. Of 230, 228 samples are of Omicron.
The remaining include one kappa variant and one XE variant. The condition (of the patient) is not serious among the new variants," the BMC commissioner said.A mutation of strains of the Omicron variant, researchers believe that the XE variant could be 10 percent more transmissible than the Omicron mutations—(KAT)