New Delhi, April 10 Recombinant variants are not unexpected, says Indian Council of Medical Research’s Dr Samiran Panda, as the XE variant gets reported out of India, as well. But with Covid-19 restrictions being relaxed and masks abandoned, it’s the masks, not vaccines that will protect against infection, he cautions.

Viruses proliferate, so recombinants come as no surprise and it’s not a pattern restricted to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Dr Panda, ICMR Additional Director General told Business Line. XE is a combination of the Omicron sub-variants BA.1 and BA.2 and according to the World Health Organization, it is seen to be 10 per cent more transmissible than the existing strain.

Countries need to outline their strategies based on a combination of factors, including the stage of disease transmission and the vaccines that were given, Dr Panda said, indicating that rising cases in China or the United Kingdom cannot be used as a reference point for India, for example. “No country is going to mirror another,”he says. When Covid-19 started, it was different, since “all countries were on the same stage of the disease”, he explains, recollecting the experience of early 2020, when the virus was new and stringent lockdowns were imposed across the world.

The administration is keeping its eye on rising cases, Dr Panda said, adding that it has not shown a spike in hospitalisation, need for oxygen and so on. “We will be guided by our own surveillance,”he said, stressing that people needed to keep their masks on. “Vaccines don’t protect from infection, masks do,”he said, adding that there were added benefits from wearing a mask, including protection against air pollution, spread of other respiratory infections and tuberculosis.

First detected in UK

In it’s epidemiological report last week, the WHO said, the XE recombinant was being tracked as part of the Omicron variant. This recombinant was first detected in the United Kingdom on January 19 and approximately 600 sequences have been reported and confirmed as of March 29, 2022, it said. “Early estimates suggest that XE has a community growth rate advantage of 1.1 (which represents a 10 per cent transmission advantage) as compared to BA.2,” the UN health agency said, adding however, that it needed further confirmation.

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