BHUBANESWAR: Odisha on Tuesday reported the first cases of Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2 that is expected to trigger the third wave in the country.
Official sources said two foreign returnees, who had tested positive for Covid-19 after their arrival in the state, have been detected with the super mutant variant, flagged as variant of concern by WHO.
Both men, aged 41 and 43 had recently returned from Nigeria and Qatar to Jagatsinghpur and Khurda respectively. They have been kept in separate wards in dedicated Covid hospital after testing positive for the virus.
One of the two patients is asymptomatic and the other had mild symptoms like cough, body pain and weakness. But no drop in oxygen level was recorded in both the patients. The Nigeria returnee was initially isolated in a hotel in Cuttack.
Director of Public Health Dr Niranjan Mishra said their condition is stable and they are being monitored. Atleast 21 persons, who had come in contact with them have been traced and their swab samples sent for RT-PCR test. The reports are awaited, he said.
"So far 8800 foreign returnees, including around 1600 from countries at risk, have arrived in the State since November last week and 12 of them tested positive for Covid-19. Their samples were sent for genome sequencing," he said.
Of the seven positive samples sequenced at Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) here, two have been detected with Omicron variant and the rest five with Delta sublineages.
ILS Director Dr Ajay Parida said the two cases of Omicron have been detected for the first time in the State. "The two were part of three samples sequenced on Monday. The result came in the morning. Five more positive samples of foreign returnees are being sequenced," he told The New Indian Express.
The State government has called an emergency meeting of health officials following the detection of Omicron variant. More restrictions are expected to be imposed to check the spread of the cases.
So far, India has reported 202 Omicron cases from 13 states and union territories with Maharashtra leading the tally with 54 cases.
Meanwhile, Odisha recorded 146 new Covid cases from 16 districts and one death in last 24 hours taking the tally to 10,53,166 and death toll to 8446.
With 72 fresh infections, Khurda district continued to be the major contributor to the caseload, followed by Cuttack (14) and Sundargarh (9). The active cases rose to 1792.
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