At the end of June this year, a new variant of COVID-19 labelled XEC, was detected for the first time in Germany and India. Its appearance in other countries is inevitable. The British "Independent" reported on Wednesday that XEC was detected in over 500 samples collected for testing.

XEC’s prevalence is lower in the US and Canada and reached a high of 5.96% in European cases on 19 August. Slovenia had high rates of infection with the variant in August with over 10 per cent of samples from the country containing XEC.

Scientists first identified the XEC variant in Berlin in June, and it has since been detected in at least 11 European countries and four others worldwide. So far, XEC makes up at