The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned against a new COVID-19 mutant ‘XE’ which is said to be more transmissible than any other virus strain of the disease reported before.
This has come as the COVID-19 cases have been declining. The new variant is a recombinant strain, being a mutant hybrid of the Omicron variant, BA.1 and BA.2.
RELATED STORY: Gov’t mulls yearly vaccination against COVID-19
The new variant is seen to be 10 per cent more transmissible than the BA.2 subvariant, which is reported to be the most contagious subvariant of the Omicron strain.
There are three hybrid or recombinant viruses detected so far which are XD, XE and XF. While XD and XF are a combination of Delta and Omicron variants, XE is a hybrid of two versions of Omicron.
The high transmissibility could mean that it could become the dominant strain in future. The XE recombinant was first detected in the UK on January 19.
