Facts about XEC, fast-spreading COVID variant with growth advantage

Published 28th Sep, 2024

By Abimbola Abatta

First detected in Germany in June, a new COVID-19 variant known as XEC has spread across 27 countries.

XEC has been found in countries across Europe, Asia and North America and has infected at least 600 people within four months.

Some of the affected countries include Germany, France, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, China, Norway, Poland and the Netherlands.

What is XEC? It is a genetic offshoot and hybrid of the strains KS.1.1 and KP.3.3, both from the Omicron family. Omicron is another transmissible variant of COVID-19, which first emerged in South Africa in 2021.

XEC mainly spreads through respiratory droplets released when an infected person exhales, talks, coughs or sneezes. The virus can survive on surfaces, but surface spread is not as frequent as airborne transmission.

Although experts reveal that available vaccines and booster shots can protect against this latest strain, it appears to transmit faster than previous COVID-19 variants.

Richard Orton, Bioinformatics Research Associate at the University of Glasgow who was quoted in a report by Wales Online, said, “XEC appears to have a growth advantage and is spreading faster than other circulating variants, suggesting it will become the dominant variant globally in the next few months.”

Some of the symptoms associated with XEC include a fever, sore throat, cough, headaches, body pain, tiredness and muscle aches.

It can also cause shortness of breath, loss of smell and loss of appetite. So far, there are no indications that the symptoms may be significantly different from previous ones.

According to William Schaffner, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Tennessee, this new variant does not appear to be more dangerous or produce more severe disease.

No African country has reported any confirmed cases of the XEC variant.

However, some of the affected countries like Canada, the US and the UK are popular destinations for African travellers, and this brings the variant closer to the continent.