Mumbai: The Union Health Ministry (MoHFW) and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are at loggerheads over whether a case of new sub-variant XE has been detected in Mumbai city of Maharashtra. The Health Ministry has refuted the claims of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, saying that the XE variant has not been confirmed by genome sequencing of the patient's sample. Top officials of the central research body INSACOG, which comes under the health ministry, said the case will have to be re-examined.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation had claimed that one of the 230 samples that were sent for testing under genome sequencing had confirmed the new sub-variant XE in one of the tests. It was also reported in this case that a 50-year-old woman who is not showing any symptoms of the corona has been found positive with the new sub-variant XE of the corona. The woman has received both doses of the vaccine. According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, "The samples will be sent to the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) for confirmation of the new variants."

Regarding this new variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the 'XE' variant has been confirmed in the UK just a few days ago. The WHO reported that the XE sub-variant appears to be 10 per cent more infectious than the B.A.2 of the Omicron. The WHO says that the XE mutation is currently being tracked as part of the omicron variant. 

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