Twelve days after the BMC talked about the discovery of the XE strain in a sample from the city which was promptly dismissed by the Centre, the latter has admitted to it but without giving clarity. The BMC has received a reply from a central institute saying the reported variant is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2. While this combination points to XE, civic officials said they will write to the institute asking it to clearly spell out the lineage. 

On April 6, the BMC published the findings of the genome sequencing of 230 samples. It said one sample—of a woman from South Africa—had been found to be infected with the XE variant, making it the country’s first such case.