Omicron: Doctor With No Travel History Is One Of The Patients; 30 Foreign Returnees 'Missing'
As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is rapidly spreading across the world, India too is on alert after at least two cases of the new strain were identified in the country.
According to the Union Health Ministry, both the confirmed cases were identified in Karnataka.
On Thursday, authorities in Karnataka confirmed that one of the patients, a 66-year-old foreign national has fully recovered and left India last week. He had recently come to India from South Africa.?
Mysterious infection
The case of the second patient is more worrisome as the 46-year-old doctor from Bengaluru has no recent travel or contact history.
The anesthesiologist at the government hospital in South Bengaluru is placed under home isolation.
He has 13 primary contacts and more than 250 secondary contacts. At least five of the primary contacts have also been infected. Results of their genomic sequencing are still awaited.
Samples from his 24 primary and 240 secondary contacts have returned negative.
According to officials, the doctor was fully vaccinated and the source of his infection is unknown.
A senior official at the hospital where he was working told Deccan Herald that the omicron infection was discovered by chance. The sample was sent for genomic sequencing due to its high viral load, in accordance with a Health Department directive.
Suspected cases
Meanwhile, suspected cases of Omicron are being reported from other states as well, mostly on foreign nationals or those with recent travel history to Africa.
In Maharashtra, 28 suspected cases have been reported so far, including 10 in Mumbai. Their samples have been sent for genome sequencing. The results should be available next week.
Missing returnees
In a related development, authorities in Andhra Pradesh are scrambling to find 30 'missing' foreign returnees.
According to reports, around 60 international passengers, including nine from Africa, who landed at various airports came to Visakhapatnam in the last 10 days.?
While 30 of them are staying in Visakhapatnam, the remaining 30 have left for various places in the state.
Some of them are allegedly not responding to telephone calls and officials fear they are ¡®missing¡¯.
Three passengers from South Africa and six from Botswana came to the city and officials have traced six of them. The remaining three ¡ª two from Botswana and one from South Africa ¡ª have reportedly left for their respective villages in Krishna district. Search is on to trace them.
No need to panic
Doctors have expressed caution but said that there is no need for panic in the wake of the discovery of Omicron in India.
Dr Dhiren, Deputy Director, Paediatric Pulmonary Medicine and Intensive care, Gangaram Hospital said that people need to be vigilant for at least the next two three weeks as the variant can turn out to be more severe than predicted in initial reports, "similar to what happened in case of the Delta variant".
He also emphasised the need of following COVID Appropriate Behaviour and said that it is the baseline that we need to understand.
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