On Sunday, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh reported their first Omicron variant case, while Maharashtra and Karnataka reported one more case of the COVID-19 variant. With this, the total of 38 Omicron variant have been currently reported in India. Omicron variant is categorized as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization and have been detected in about 60 countries.

According to state health officials, Chandigarh reported its first case of a 20-year-old fully vaccinated man who came from Italy to meet his relatives. An official statement said that the patient was fully vaccinated and asymptomatic throughout. Only after genomic sequencing results received on December 11, he was found positive for the variant. All his high-risk family contacts were put under quarantine and all tested negative for COVID-19 by the RT-PCR method.

The first case in Andhra Pradesh is a 34-year old foreign traveler, who travelled from Ireland to Mumbai and then to Visakhapatnam. In a release the Public Health Director, said that this person tested negative for COVID-19 and was asymptomatic, so was allowed to travel onward to Visakhapatnam on November 27.  He tested positive for COVID-19 after a second RT-PCR test in Vizianagaram and Omicron positive after his sample was sent to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad for genome sequencing. Out of the 15 foreign travelers who tested positive for COVID-19, genome sequencing reports related to 10 cases were received and only one of them was confirmed Omicron positive.

Veena George, the Kerala Health Minister said that the first case of COVID-19 variant Omicron patient was a native from Kerala who recently came back from the United Kingdom was in a stable condition. She requested the public not to panic as the government was taking all necessary measures to prevent the spread of the new variant.

Nagpur in Maharashtra reported another case of a 40-year-old man who tested positive for the Omicron variant after returning from a West African country.

Karnataka state Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said that Omicron variant was first detected in India in Bengaluru in a South African national of Indian origin and a doctor. This was the third case, where a 34-year-old male, who tested positive for the variant. He has been isolated and all his 5 primary and 15 secondary contacts have been traced and samples sent for testing.

On Saturday, Delhi reported its second case, where a 35-year-old man with travel history to Zimbabwe and South Africa tested positive. 

Source: ET Healthworld