XE strain in Mumbai or not? BMC to ask Centre

A health worker collects a swab sample, at Dadar station on February 15, 2022. Pic/Ashish Raje

Twelve days after the BMC talked about the discovery of the XE strain in a sample from the city which was promptly dismissed by the Centre, the latter has admitted to it but without giving clarity. The BMC has received a reply from a central institute saying the reported variant is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2. While this combination points to XE, civic officials said they will write to the institute asking it to clearly spell out the lineage.

On April 6, the BMC published the findings of the genome sequencing of 230 samples. It said one sample - of a woman from South Africa - had been found to be infected with the XE variant, making it the country's first such case.

Within hours, the Union health ministry dismissed the BMC's claim. Later, the BMC sent the sequencing data to the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG). It now has received a letter from NIBMG about the analysis of the variant.

"The letter mentioned that the variant is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2 but there isn't any mention of the name of the variant in the letter. So we will write to them seeking advice on the lineage," said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner.

As per the World Health Organisation, the new variant, first detected in the UK in mid-January, appears to be more transmissible than strains like Omicron.

Likely XE patients so far

The woman from South Africa arrived in the city on February 10 and had no travel history. The 50-year-old was a member of a shooting crew and was fully vaccinated. On March 2, she was found positive and quarantined. The next day, she tested negative. Her sample was then sent for genome sequencing.

Another possible XE infection was reported from Gujarat on April 9. The patient was a man from Mumbai who tested positive in Vadodara in March. He later returned to Mumbai and recovered after a week.