Tuguegarao City, Cagayan – The Department of Health Technical Advisory Group & the UK Health Security Agency said the new ‘Omicron XE’ is more transmissible, but is not seen to cause severe infection and symptoms in patients.
‘Omicron XE’ is a recombination of two Omicron lineages and has shown signs of being more contagious than the original strains, however, it is not expected to evade vaccines or cause severe effects to the infected.
The DOH said further that it is not as severe as the Omicron variant that caused the surge in January of this year.
Dr. Edsel Salvaña of the DOH-TAG explained t”the ‘XE’ combines the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron sub-lineages and is faster in transmitting by almost 10% more than the BA.2. However, it is not expected to have a stronger ability to evade vaccine immunity or cause severe COVID-19.”
“Most of our vaccines target BA1 and BA2 na medyo may breakthrough infection. We don’t really expect na mas mataas ang breakthrough infection ng any of these recombinants more than their parent lineages,” he added.
The Omicron XE variant was first recorded in Bangkok, Thailand on April 2, prompting the DOH to closely monitor the strain with the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the new variant’s effects. TNF