Omicron variant: Nagpur reports first case, Maharashtra's tally rises to 18

Nagpur reported its first Omicron case on Sunday with a 40-year-old man testing positive for this variant of coronavirus after returning from South Africa, which took Maharashtra's count of such cases to 18, the state health department said.

The man from Nagpur had arrived in the state from South Africa on December 5. A report by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) said that he has mild symptoms of the infection. He is currently in isolation at AIIMS Nagpur, it said.

The patient has not taken any anti-coronavirus vaccine so far, the department said in a statement.

His 30 close contacts were traced and all of them have tested negative for the infection.

The new patient is a case of re-infection. He was earlier diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 11 this year, but his symptoms were mild and did not require hospitalisation, it added.

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Talking to PTI, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) commissioner Radhakrishnan B said the patient's condition is stable. "We will be monitoring him closely," he said.

Earlier, Pimpri Chinchwad township (near Pune), Mumbai and Pune cities have reported Omicron cases.

The state health department further said that since December 1, a total of 77,530 passengers have arrived in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur airports from other countries. They include 11,751 from 'at-risk' countries and their RT-PCR test has been done.

Of them, 22 passengers from 'at risk' countries and eight from other countries tested COVID-19 positive in the RT-PCR test and their samples have been sent for genomic sequencing, it said.

Additionally field surveillance of all international passengers, who have arrived since November 1 is underway. Through airport and field surveillance, 107 samples have been sent for genomic sequencing and the results of 26 are awaited so far, it added.

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