Strengthen monitoring, surveillance of new COVID variants, directs Mandaviya

With new ‘XE variant’ of COVID-19 being detected from various parts of the country, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday directed the officials to boost ongoing monitoring and surveillance of new variants and cases. 

 

Mandaviya was chairing a meeting with key experts and officials on the new COVID-19 variants and cases in the country. Albeit the pandemic is receding in the country, new emerging variants continue to be a cause of concern for the government.  

 

Government sources reveleaed that Maharashtra and Gujarat have confirmed presence of the highly transmissible XE sub-variant of Omicron. 

Meanwhile, at least 796 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours in India. Following a continuous downward trend, country's active caseload declined to 10,889, active cases, according to the Union health ministry data. Weekly positivity rate in the country currently stands at 0.24% and the daily positivity rate is also reported to be 0.20%. India’s cumulative covid-19 vaccination coverage breached 186 crore today.
 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to evolve. Given the current high level of transmission worldwide, it is likely that further variants, including recombinants, will continue to emerge, it said. The apex global public health agency has explained that recombination is common among coronaviruses and is regarded as an expected mutational event.   

 

XE is a recombinant of BA.1 and BA.2 and may have developed in a person infected with both BA.1 and BA.2.  In addition, it also has three mutations which are not present in BA.1 or BA.2 sequences. 

 

The XE recombinant is being tracked as part of the Omicron variant. This recombinant was first detected in the United Kingdom on 19 January and approximately 600 sequences have been reported and confirmed as of 29 March 2022, as per WHO. Early estimates suggest that XE has a 10% transmission advantage as compared to BA.2; however, this finding requires further confirmation, the WHO further said.