CHENNAI: Thirty-three more people have tested positive for the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Tamil Nadu. With this, the total number of cases of the Omicron variant in the state has increased to 34, of which 26 are from Chennai.
Speaking to reporters at the DMS campus on Thursday, Health Minister Ma Subramanian said 30 people including contacts of international travellers and three people in cluster areas tested positive.
Apart from the 26 Omicron cases reported in Chennai, four cases were reported from Madurai, two from Tiruvannamalai and one from Salem. One Keralite also tested positive for the variant. All these people had the 'S' gene drop, a marker for the Omicron variant, the minister said.
So far, a total of 114 travellers tested positive for COVID-19, of which 57 had the 'S' gene drop, the minister said. The test reports were released by the National Institute of Virology, Pune, on Wednesday night.
The six family contacts of the first Omicron case in Tamil Nadu, a 47-year-old man who returned from Nigeria, also tested positive for the new variant.