Earlier Two Persons Were Tested Positive For Omicron in Karnataka
A 72-year-old man has been found infected with the Omicron variant of coronavirus in Jamnagar in Gujarat following his return from Zimbabwe, the state health department said on Saturday amid reports from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka that several passengers who had returned to the country by air from South Africa and other nations had fled, making it difficult for the authorities trace them.
The sample of the elderly man was sent for genome sequencing, after he tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, the Gujarat health department said. Gujarat’s Commissioner of Health Jai Prakash Shivhare has confirmed that the man was found infected with the Omicron strain.
The 72-year-old is the third person in India to be infected by the new highly contagious variant.
Earlier, two persons had tested positive for this variant in Karnataka where efforts are on to trace as many as 10 people who had arrived from South Africa and had gone missing.
This comes after a 66-year-old South African – India’s first confirmed Omicron Covid case – “fled” the country a week after landing in Bengaluru. The man, who had received both vaccine doses, tested positive on arrival and because he was asymptomatic, was asked to self-isolate. His samples were sent for testing.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut, 13 of nearly 300 people on flights originating outside the country disappeared after providing false addresses and contact information.
Seven flew in from South Africa, where the Omicron variant was first reported, an NDTV report said quoting news agency ANI. Officials are trying to track and test them for COVID-19.
The Omicron strain has been marked as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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