As the latest variant of the Coronavirus, the Omicron variant, has created a new scare across the world, the first cases of the infection by the variant have been detected in India. Union Health Ministry officials informed on Thursday that 2 cases of infection by the Omicron variant were detected in Karnataka last night.
This was revealed by Joint Secretary in health ministry Lav Agarwal during a press briefing on the Covid-19 situation in the country along with the latest variant of the Chinese virus. He said that the two cases were detected by the INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics) network of the health ministry, and the reports of the same came late last night.
The two patients Omicron variant of the virus are two males ages 66 years and 46 years. Agarwal said that contact tracing of both the two patients are being conducted as per protocol. He said that both primary and secondary contacts of the patients have been traced, and they are being tested.
The government of India has already implemented new international travel guidelines to prevent the spread of the new variant of Covid-19. According to new rules, passengers from “at-risk” countries will be tested for Covid on arrival and can’t leave the airport till their RT-PCR test results are available. Patients that test negative will undergo a seven-day home quarantine, and will be re-tested on the 8th day. Positive patients will have to follow stringent isolation protocols, and their samples will be sent for genomic testing at the INSACOG laboratory network. The “at-risk” countries include all countries in Europe, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Israel.
All travellers coming to India will have to upload a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report, and this test should have been conducted within 72 hours prior to undertaking the journey. They will have to file a Self-Declaration Form on the Air Suvidha portal, and upload the negative RT-PCR test report.
The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus was detected first in South Africa, after that it has been detected in and some other countries. This has been declared as a variant of concern by the World Health Organisation.