BF.7 scare: China returnee tests positive for Covid in Agra

Covid surge: A 40-year-old man from Agra who recently visited China has reportedly tested positive for Covid. He was on a business trip to China and returned from there two days ago, on December 23. He got tested at a private lab which provided his report today, Sunday. The report has come out positive for coronavirus. The lab also informed the health department which sent the rapid response team to the person's home. Now, all those who came in contact with him will now be tested.

Also Read: China stops publishing daily infection numbers as Covid explodes

Covid has spread like wildfire in China with reports suggesting around half a million infection cases every day. Reports coming from China say hospitals are running out of beds and oxygen due to a high number of cases.  

India on Saturday made an RT-PCR test must for all those arriving from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand.

Earlier this week, a man from Gujarat's Bhavnagar tested positive for Covid. He also visited China and returned on December 19. However, there was no confirmation yet whether he was infected with BF.7 variant - a sublineage of Omicron - which is a dominant variant in China. His sample had been sent to a lab in Gandhinagar for genome sequencing.

So far, four cases of BF.7 variant have been detected - three in Gujarat and one in Odisha.

On Wednesday, Gujarat's Health Department said two patients had been infected with BF.7 and BF 12 variants in July, October, and November 2022. These patients were treated in home isolation and have fully recovered, it said.

In Odisha, a woman tested positive for BF.7 variant on 30 September. In the last three months, the government said no other sample of this variant had been detected in the eastern state. The woman tested was asymptomatic at the time of the test. "She got tested for her travel to the USA. She and her family is in the USA since October. None of them have any flu-like symptoms since their departure from India," the state government said.

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