MUMBAI: Eight more cases of the highly transmissible Omicron variant have been found in positive Covid-19 samples in the state, taking the count of cases linked to the variant to 48 in Maharashtra. Four of the new cases were detected from passengers arriving at Mumbai airport, three are residents of Satara and one is from Pune city. All have international travel history and most adults are either partially or fully vaccinated, as per authorities.
State officials said all four cases in Mumbai were detected through screening at the airport. A 32-year-old Kerala resident and a 31-year-old resident of Jalgaon, who had returned from South Africa on December 6, were among the positive cases. Another infected individual is a 48-year-old Chhattisgarh resident who arrived from Tanzania to Mumbai on December 11. The fourth person found with the variant is a 49-year-old UK resident who landed in Mumbai from London on December 12 and was found positive for Covid during screening at the airport. They were put under institutional quarantine and their samples sent for genome sequencing.
The National Institute of Virology confirmed the Omicron diagnosis on Saturday. Importantly, said state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate, two of them, the Jalgaon and the UK residents, were fully vaccinated. The Chhattisgarh man was unvaccinated while the Kerala man had taken a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Dr Mangala Gomare, BMC’s executive health officer, said all were asymptomatic and were hospitalised as a precaution.
The three Satara patients are all members of the same family, state officials said. Two are adults and one is an eight-year-old girl. Both adults are fully vaccinated. Officials said they had a travel history to east Africa. However, none of them have any symptoms. The sole Pune patient is a 17-year-old contact of an international traveller. She too has no symptoms, the officials said.
Dr Awate said that of the 48 infected till now, seven are children. None of the children had any major symptoms although they are all unvaccinated, he said. One of the physicians at Jijatama Hospital in Pimpri-Chinchwad, where two children were hospitalised first, said only one of them had a minor cough. “The cough was resolved with basic medication. The symptoms have been mild or non-existent in the cases we have seen so far,” he said.
A senior state official, however, said it would be premature to call Omicron a mild variant based on a handful of cases. Incidentally, a study by Imperial College London (ICL), released on Friday, said there was no evidence to say Omicron was milder than Delta. In fact, the researchers said, the risk of reinfection with Omicron could be more than five times higher than Delta.
Dr Awate said the silver lining is that 28 of the 48 patients have been discharged. Also, the state has carried out RT-PCR tests of 20,546 international travellers, of whom just 61 (0.3%) were found positive for Covid-19.
State officials said all four cases in Mumbai were detected through screening at the airport. A 32-year-old Kerala resident and a 31-year-old resident of Jalgaon, who had returned from South Africa on December 6, were among the positive cases. Another infected individual is a 48-year-old Chhattisgarh resident who arrived from Tanzania to Mumbai on December 11. The fourth person found with the variant is a 49-year-old UK resident who landed in Mumbai from London on December 12 and was found positive for Covid during screening at the airport. They were put under institutional quarantine and their samples sent for genome sequencing.
The National Institute of Virology confirmed the Omicron diagnosis on Saturday. Importantly, said state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate, two of them, the Jalgaon and the UK residents, were fully vaccinated. The Chhattisgarh man was unvaccinated while the Kerala man had taken a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Dr Mangala Gomare, BMC’s executive health officer, said all were asymptomatic and were hospitalised as a precaution.
The three Satara patients are all members of the same family, state officials said. Two are adults and one is an eight-year-old girl. Both adults are fully vaccinated. Officials said they had a travel history to east Africa. However, none of them have any symptoms. The sole Pune patient is a 17-year-old contact of an international traveller. She too has no symptoms, the officials said.
Dr Awate said that of the 48 infected till now, seven are children. None of the children had any major symptoms although they are all unvaccinated, he said. One of the physicians at Jijatama Hospital in Pimpri-Chinchwad, where two children were hospitalised first, said only one of them had a minor cough. “The cough was resolved with basic medication. The symptoms have been mild or non-existent in the cases we have seen so far,” he said.
A senior state official, however, said it would be premature to call Omicron a mild variant based on a handful of cases. Incidentally, a study by Imperial College London (ICL), released on Friday, said there was no evidence to say Omicron was milder than Delta. In fact, the researchers said, the risk of reinfection with Omicron could be more than five times higher than Delta.
Dr Awate said the silver lining is that 28 of the 48 patients have been discharged. Also, the state has carried out RT-PCR tests of 20,546 international travellers, of whom just 61 (0.3%) were found positive for Covid-19.
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