In the last three days, 12 people with Omicron have been admitted to hospitals in Delhi after arriving on international flights. Their samples were sent in for genome testing to determine if they had the Omicron strain.
All of them are being treated at Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital. Eight people were admitted to the hospital yesterday after testing positive for the Covid virus. Covid tests have not been completed for four more patients admitted today.
“Four are British, four are French, a few are Tanzanian, and one is Belgian. One of the group has a fever, but everyone else is fine.” Suresh Kumar, MD, Medical Director of LNJP Hospital, stated
They’ve already sent samples to be tested for Omicron infection, he said, and the results should be available in five or six days. When NDTV spoke with Dr. Kumar, he explained that genome sequencing is a time-consuming and complicated process.
So far, only two cases of Omicron have been identified in India, both in the state of Karnataka. One of them is a 46-year-old Bengaluru doctor with a clean record of travel vaccinations. He had a fever and body pains as of Nov. 21.
A 66-year-old South African patient with a negative Covid test arrived in India on November 20 and flew to Dubai seven days later. According to the state of Karnataka, he “escaped” from the hotel and flew out of the country.
Covid was discovered in the systems of two international passengers, one of whom was a minor, who arrived in Tamil Nadu early this morning. The state government has denied Omicron cases, claiming that samples were instead sent for genome testing.
Currently, the Omicron variant has been confirmed in 23 countries, with the WHO predicting that the number will grow.
