Chandigarh, AP detect 1st Omicron cases, 3rd case in K'taka; India tally now 36

Chandigarh reported its first case of Omicron after swab samples of a fully vaccinated 20yearold male passenger from Italy who had tested COVID19 positive on December 1 revealed the presence of the new variant of the novel coronavirusEarlier today Andhra Pradesh detected its first case of Omicron and Karnataka detected its third case of the new COVID19 variant With this the tally of Omicron cases in India has gone up to 36A 20yearold male resident of Italy had landed in India on November 22 He had come to visit his relatives in ChandigarhHe was under home quarantine and was found COVID19 positive on retesting on December 1 As per the protocol he was then put under institutional quarantine His COVID19 positive sample was sent for wholegenome sequencing to NCDC New Delhi the Chandigarh Health Department said in a statementSeven highrisk family contacts of the man have been put under quarantine and were tested for COVID19 by RTPCR method the health department said adding all of them tested as negativeAlso read Omicron milder than Delta say South African doctorsThe traveller was asymptomatic throughout He had been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in ItalyThe 20yearold had been kept in quarantine for 11 days His report for whole genomic sequencing was received late night on December 11 and was found positive for the Omicron variantThe Health Department informed that the man had been tested for COVID19 again today by RTPCR method and the report is awaitedIf he is negative he will be put under home quarantine for seven days and if positive institutional quarantine will continue till negative His seven highrisk contacts have also been tested again today as a precautionary measure the health department saidChandigarh health department appealed to the public to follow Covid19 appropriate behaviour and urged those eligible for COVID19 vaccine to get themselves vaccinated soonIn Andhra Pradesh a 34year old foreign traveller from Ireland tested positive for the Omicron variant He had arrived in Mumbai Airport and upon testing was found negative for Covid19 He was allowed to travel and reached Vishakhapatnam on November 27On conducting retest at Vizianagaram the RTPCR report was found Positive for COVID19 and testing for genome sequencing found that he was Omicron positive However he tested negative for the virus on December 11Meanwhile the third case of Omicron was detected in KarnatakaA 34yearold returnee from South Africa has tested positive and is being isolated and being treated in a government hospital Five primary and 15 secondary contacts traced and their samples sent for testing Karnataka Health Minister Dr Sudhakar K said todayOn November 26 the WHO named the new COVID19 variant B11529 which has been detected in South Africa as OmicronThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever