INSACOG lab testing to confirm XE Variant in India

A central government laboratory that is part of INSACOG, the pan-India consortium of 38 labs tasked with monitoring genomic variations in SARS-CoV-2, is conducting further tests to confirm the presence of the XE variant in India.

"It will take 24-48 hours to confirm the presence of the XE variant," said NK Arora, head of the Covid Working Group within National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI).

Gujarat reported its first case of the XE variant last week, after a man from Mumbai tested positive for Covid-19 during his visit to Vadodara. The 67-year-old contracted the XE sub-variant of the Omicron variant in Gujarat a month ago, state officials said on Saturday.


Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre detected XE, after which the sample was sent for confirmation to a laboratory in Kolkata. That report was received on Friday.

However, Arora said more tests were required. "While the state-run laboratory has found it was XE, samples have been sent to the core INSACOG laboratory and results will be out in a day or two," he said.

The NTAGI head also said there's no need to panic as none of the suspected cases had serious symptoms and no clustering had been found. "Both suspected cases - an earlier case of Mumbai and (the one in) Gujarat - had slight fever and did not require hospitalisation," he said. Experts at INSACOG met on Friday to review the situation.

Arora, however, warned against letting down the guard, and advised people to continue following Covid-appropriate behaviour, including masking.