New Delhi: India reports one confirmed case of the XE Covid variant, according to a bulletin by Indian SARS-CoV2 Genomics Sequencing Consortium (INSACOG).
The location of the infected person is not known yet. The Union Health Ministry is yet to issue any statement regarding it
The bulletin for April 25 released on Tuesday reports the finding of the one case of XE variant.
In the previous bulletin, INSACOG reported Omicron (BA.2) as the dominant variant in India to date.
INSACOG is a network of national testing laboratories set up by the government.
The bulletin also confirmed increase in cases in 12 states compared to the previous week.
Meanwhile, cases in 19 states have shown a decline, according to the report.
"BA.2.10 and BA.2.12 are BA.2 sub-lineages that have been detected and many old BA.2 sequences have been reclassified into these new sub-lineages. So far these sub-lineages are not reported to be associated with increased severity of disease," the bulletin said.
Experts believe XE variant 10 per cent more transmissible than the raging BA.2 variant of Omicron.
Omicron variant is blamed for the difficult third wave of cases in the country. As of now, there are no XE clusters in India.