TN man who died of Covid was infected with Omicron XBB variant

CHENNAI: A 27-year-old man who had died of Covid-19 in a private hospital in Tamil Nadu's Tiruchi was infected with the Omicron-XBB variant, officials said on Tuesday.

The whole genome sequencing report of the youth confirmed the presence of XBB variant.

Whole genome sequencing done on samples of patients tested Covid-19 positive have found that the two variants of Omicron, XBB and BA.2 and their sub variants were dominant in 95 per cent of the samples.

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian also told media persons that Omicron continued to be the dominant variant in Covid positive cases in Tamil Nadu.

The Omicron and its sub variants have been present in the Covid samples since December 2021 since the third wave of Covid. It has been dominating the other samples like Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants.