Vadodara: Gujarat has reported the first case of XE variant of Covid-19 in the state. The person who is detected infected is in Mumbai at present. He is healthy after a week-long effect of infection.

The Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre had detected the XE variant in the 67-year old patient 12 days ago. The sample was sent to DBT-National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBGM), Kalyani in Kolkata for confirmation, as per INSACOG guidelines. The confirmation was received on Friday.

The 67-year old man, who travelled to Vadodara from Mumbai with his wife, had tested positive for covid-19 on 12th March. The sample was sent for genome sequencing following the same. The man is originally a resident of Mumbai. He had returned to Mumbai from Vadodara. After confirmation of XE variant when Gujarat health department contacted him, he was in Mumbai. He told that he had been alright within a week after catching infection.

The XE variant is a recombinant of the BA.1 and BA.2 subtypes of the Omicron variant. DeshGujarat