Costume designer from Mumbai is India’s first XE case

Of 230 samples from city, 228 found to be infected with Omicron; the XE patient, a woman, has already tested negative

The country’s first Coronavirus XE variant has been found in Mumbai, the BMC said on Wednesday. She is a costume designer who tested positive after coming from South Africa. The finding was made in a batch of 230 samples from the city of which 228 were found to be infected with Omicron. The other was a Kappa infection. BMC officials said there is no cause for concern, even as they urged citizens to stick to preventive practices.

As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), the new variant, first detected in the UK in mid-January, appears to be more transmissible than previous strains of Coronavirus. Over 600 cases of XE infection have been reported across the world so far. 

As part of the 11th serosurvey, 376 samples from COVID infected patients were tested at the genome sequencing labs at the civic-run Kasturba Hospital and the Pune-based National Institute of Virology. Of the samples from Mumbai, 31 were of patients in the age group of 0-20 years, 95 in 21-40 years, 72 in 41-60 years, 29 in 61-80 years, and 3 in 81-100 years age groups.

“The situation is under complete control, public life has now returned to normal. However, in many parts of the world, the risk of COVID infection is still high. Therefore, citizens should spontaneously maintain preventive behaviour without being ignorant,” said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner.

The XE patient

The 50-year-old woman arrived from South Africa on February 10 and did not have any travel history. She had taken both doses of the Comirnaty vaccine. BMC said she is a costume designer and a member of a shooting crew. In India, she was negative. But on March 2, she was found positive, though asymptomatic, and was quarantined in a room at Taj Lands End hotel. The result of the test done on the next day, on March 3, was negative. She was not comorbid.

Vax status of patients

Twelve of the 21 patients admitted were unvaxxed, while the others were fully vaccinated. All the patients had mild symptoms and did not need oxygen support or ICU. Of those whose samples were collected, one woman died. “She died due to a gastro related disease and her death was reported as non-COVID death. She had taken both doses,” said a BMC official.  

Centre yet to get report

The Centre later dismissed the report on the XE strain. “In today’s INSACOG meeting we have been asked to send the sequencing data to NIBMG for further analysis to confirm XE variant,” said a BMC official. Dr Jayanti Shastri, in-charge of the Kasturba genome sequencing lab, attended INSACOG meeting.

Genome test findings

2021
£August: 68 per cent Delta, 13 per cent Kappa
£September: 81 per cent Delta
£October: 88 per cent Delta and derivatives
£November: 99 per cent Delta and derivatives
£December: 55 per cent Omicron, 45 per cent Delta

2022
£January: 89 per cent Omicron, 8 per cent Delta
£February: 95 per cent Omicron, 1.5 per cent £Delta, 3 per cent others
£March: 100 per cent Omicron
£April: 99.13 per cent Omicron, 0.43 per cent Kappa, 0.43 per cent XE

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