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India reports its first case of XXB.1.5 COVID variant: report

 




Covid: The first case of XXB.1.5 variant has been confirmed in Gujarat.


India has reported its first case of the Omicron variant 'XXB.1.5' which is responsible for the increase in coronavirus cases in New York. As per ET report, the first case of XXB.1.5 has been confirmed in Gujarat.


More than 40% of COVID-19 cases in the United States are now caused by Omicron XBB.1.5, unpublished data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed. Epidemiologist Eric Feigel-Ding gave this information on his official Twitter handle.


According to Eric Feigel-Ding, the new version is more immune deterrent and better than BQ and XBB. He said that several models show that the XXB15 variant is much worse in transmission R value and infection rate than the previous variant.


"The irony is that the worst variant the world is facing right now is actually XBB," Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with Reuters.


Osterholm said seven of the 10 US states where cases and hospitalizations are rising are in the Northeast, concurrent with a rise in XBb cases, he was quoted as saying by Reuters.


Recombinant variants of BA.2, XBB and XBB.1.5 accounted for 44.1% of the total cases in the country for the week ending 31 December. For the week ending December 24, XBB.1.5 made up 21.7% of the total cases, Reuters reported.


The XBB variant is increasing cases in parts of Asia, including Singapore. That was 3.6% of total cases in the US this week, compared to 4.2% last week. The agency began reporting data separately for the two subvariants from this week.

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