XBB variant

Amid the Covid scare in China, a message is circulating on WhatsApp warning that the XBB subvariant of Omicron is deadlier than Delta. The health ministry ...

The health ministry has busted this post as fake and misleading. [By India Today Web Desk](/author/india-today-web-desk): In light of the surge in Covid-19 cases in China and other countries, the Indian government has sounded the alert. It also warns that its symptoms are significantly different from other subvariants.

The health ministry shared detailed information about the latest coronavirus variant and called it "fake" and "misleading."

Of these, BA.2 and BA.5 proved to be stronger than the rest. One death was recorded over the last 24 hours. There is a lot of misinformation spreading on the internet. The Ministry of Health took to Twitter to debunk a particular message about the Covid XBB variant. BA.5.1.7 and BF.7 are names given to downstream descendants of BA.5." "Everyone is advised to wear a mask because the new variant of the COVID-Omicron XBB coronavirus is different, deadly and not easy to detect correctly," it says.

XBB is the dominant variant in India now. But in most people it will cause no more than a fever, cough, and cold. Even case counts have been low — only 158 ...

In most people, the XBB variant is likely to lead to a fever, cough, and cold — and most people are not even getting tested now. If XBB had the potential to drive a surge in cases, hospitalisations, and deaths, some indications would be visible by now. The virus can go into the lungs in some cases, but it is not the location of choice for the variant. XBB follows a disease pattern that is similar to its forbear Omicron variants. An analysis by an expert group of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in October said, “There has been a broad increase in prevalence of XBB in regional genomic surveillance… What this essentially means is that the variant is more likely to cause re-infection or breakthrough infections in people.