Covid XEC variant confirmed in Ireland and it may cause strange dinnertime symptom

Health officials in Ireland have confirmed the spread of the new Covid variant XEC. The HSE advises anyone with symptoms to stay at home and avoid contact with others.

Health officials have published an update on Covid in Ireland, confirming that new variant XEC is spreading in Ireland.

The latest strain, which is a combination of the KS.1.1 and KP.3.3 variants, is thought to be more transmissible due to its numerous mutations.

Last week, Ireland's Health Protection Surveillance Centre reported that the XEC stain accounted for 7.1% of all officially recorded cases over the past five weeks. It said: "Emerging lineage XEC (KP.3 and KS.1.1 recombinant - recently named VUM by WHO andECDC) accounted for 7.1% of sequences in the last five week period."

Across the pond in the UK, the XEC strain is estimated to be responsible for about one in ten confirmed coronavirus cases. Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, a leading Consultant Epidemiologist at the UK's Health Security Agency, said: "Covid-19 is continuing to circulate, with a slight increase in hospitalisations over the past two weeks. We understand people may be concerned about new variants. Our surveillance shows that where Covid cases are sequenced, around 1 in 10 are the XEC lineage.

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"Current information doesn't suggest we should be more concerned about this variant but we are monitoring this closely. The most important thing to do is to get your vaccination as soon as possible if you're eligible."

As apprehension grows over the new XEC strain potentially becoming dominant in Ireland, it has been reported that the symptoms associated with this variant are similar to those of other Covid strains. This may include loss of appetite - a symptom that you may not notice until you sit down at dinnertime.

Dr Bruno Silvester Lopes, a lecturer in microbiology at Teesside University told Cosmopolitan: "The symptoms linked to XEC resemble those of earlier Covid variants such as fever, sore throat, cough, loss of sense of smell, reduced appetite and body aches."

Full list of Covid XEC symptoms

• A high temperature or shivering (chills) – a high temperature means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
• A new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
• A loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
• Shortness of breath
• Feeling tired or exhausted
• An aching body
• A headache
• A sore throat
• A blocked or runny nose
• Loss of appetite
• Diarrhoea
• Feeling sick or being sick

The HSE lists fatigue, a high temperature/having chills and a dry cough as the top three Covid symptoms to look out for. Less common symptoms of Covid, according to the HSE, include loss or change to your sense of smell or taste, runny or blocked nose, conjunctivitis, sore throat, headache, muscle or joint pain, different types of skin rash, nausea or vomiting, diarrhoea and chills or dizziness.

If you have any of these symptoms, the HSE advice is to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 48 hours after your symptoms are mostly or fully gone. If you test positive for Covid, the current advice is to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for five days from the date you first had symptoms.

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