Japan's Health Ministry reports first case of Omicron XE variant

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• Apr 12, 2022 | Poonam Nath

Approximately 1,100 cases of the XE variant had been confirmed in the United Kingdom, accounting for less than 1% of all infections in the country.

Digital Desk: The health ministry issued a statement saying that Japan had detected the XE "recombinant variant" of the coronavirus's omicron strain for the first time during a routine airport check.

On March 26, a woman in her 30s arrived at Narita Airport from the United States and tested positive for the XE variant. According to the ministry, the woman, whose nationality was not immediately revealed, was asymptomatic.

The woman had received two shots of a Pfizer Inc.-developed vaccine, but she tested positive for the virus upon arrival. The XE strain was discovered using genetic sequencing tests performed on samples taken from the woman at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. 

She was treated at a clinic for infected people before being released at the end of her quarantine period.

The institute stated that two other samples taken from quarantined airport arrivals appeared to be mixtures of the omicron variant's genetic material; until now, the type of variant is not determined.

The XE strain is recombinant of the omicron variant's BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants. According to the U.K. Health Security Agency, a recombinant variant occurs when an individual becomes infected with two or more variants simultaneously, resulting in a mixing of their genetic material within the patient's body.

According to the World Health Organization, early estimates based on limited preliminary data suggest that XE is about 1.1 times more transmissible than BA.2. However, the WHO has stated that this finding needs to be confirmed further.

Hiroshi Nishiura, a Kyoto University mathematical modeling expert, has stated that Japan should watch XE and other new variants.

"The transmissibility of XE is unquestionably higher than that of BA.1 or BA.2," Nishiura stated last week. "If people's international mobility grows, XE has a good chance of supplanting the current omicron variants." However, we still don't know the severity of symptoms among infected people, so we need to examine the variant's epidemiological impact closely."

Also Read:Breaking: India reports first case of Omicron's new sub-variant XE from Mumbai