Omicron
Odisha registers 2 Omicron cases
Bhubaneswar/UNI: A man who returned from Nigeria and another who came from Qatar have been detected with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in Odisha, health officials said on Tuesday.
Their genome sequencing was done at the Institute of Life Science (ILS) here.
ILS sources said these two are the first cases of the new variant reported in the eastern state.
The Nigeria-returnee is from Jagatsinghpur and he has been admitted in Cuttack.
The Qatar returnee is from Khordh district and has been admitted to a Bhubaneswar hospital.
Both are asymptomatic and 21 contacts traced have tested negative so far. A high-level meeting is underway following the first two cases.
Sources said while one of the Omicron patients has no Covid symptoms, the other had only cough. Both of them had returned from non-risk countries.
Health department sources said so far 8,800 people have returned to the state from abroad and 1,600 of them returned from countries designated as 'risk'.
Only 12 returnees from abroad tested Covid positive in the RT-PCR test. During the genome sequencing of these patients, only two were detected with the Omicron variant of the virus.
A high-level meeting has been convened at the Lok Seva Bhawan attended by senior health department officials and other officials concerned to discuss the strategies after the detection of two Omicron variants in the state.
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