A ‘new class’ of Omicron variant — XBB or Gryphon — has been garnering a lot of attention amid reports of infections in India, including in Maharashtra. “XBB is on the rise, causing 20 to 30 per cent of infections in some states, like Maharashtra,” a scientist who is part of the country’s Sars-CoV-2 sequencing consortium, said. To recall, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from South Africa on November 25, 2021. On November 26, 2021, the WHO named this variant B.1.1.529 as Omicron. View More