The case is a 34-year-old local parcel delivery man who may have contracted the mutated or hybrid disease due to his frequent contact with many people.

The patient was diagnosed on February 22 and his samples were sent to the Department of Medical Sciences to determine the genetic code.

However, the diagnosis is still awaiting confirmation through further testing and additional information.

Doctor Supakit Sirilak pointed out that the case is not Omicron XE, as previously reported, because its genetic makeup is closer to the new XJ variant, first detected in Finland.

XJ is another combination of the BA.1 and BA.2 variants, he added.

According to information from the World Health Organization (WHO), the XJ variant is 10 percent more transmissible than the BA.2 strain, but there is still limited information on its ability to evade the human immune response.

Omicron now accounts for 99.84 percent of all Covid-19 cases in Thailand and of these, 92.2 percent are of the BA.2 sub variant.

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