BHUBANESWAR: Odisha recorded five more Omicron cases on Thursday taking the tally to 14 within a week. One of them does not have any international travel history.
Sources said six Covid positive samples were sequenced at the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) here on Wednesday and all of those detected with the super mutant variant. While five, aged 22 to 44, belonged to the State, one was a native of West Bengal and excluded from the list.
Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the West Bengal man had come to Puri to have a ‘darshan’ of Lord Jagannath. Since he was not having Covid vaccination certificate, he was subjected to RT-PCR test as mandated for entry into the temple. “He tested positive for Covid-19 and subsequently his sample was sent for genome sequencing. He has left for Kolkata. Since he hails from the neighbouring state, this case was not added to the Odisha list,” he clarified.
Of the five new cases of Omicron variant, four are foreign returnees and one has the travel history to Raipur and Hyderabad. Two of the international travellers had returned from UAE to Bhadrak and Jagatsinghpur while one had come from Qatar and one from Congo to Khurda.
“The primary contacts of the foreign returnees have been traced and their samples collected for RT-PCR tests. Some of them have tested negative and reports of some others are awaited. One of the contacts of the Hyderabad returnee has tested positive. His sample has been sent to ILS for sequencing,” Dr Mohapatra said.
Amid the threat of local transmission of the new variant, the health officials suspected that the persons from Khurda who had visited Hyderabad might have contracted the virus there. “We have to verify the dates of his travel and other details. The condition of all five persons, including one woman, is stable. Two among them are undergoing treatment in the Covid hospitals,” he added.
Meanwhile, the State reported marginal rise in new cases as 225 tested positive for Covid-19 in last 24 hours. As many as 221 cases were registered a day before.
The maximum 87 cases were from Khurda, followed by 23 from Sambalpur, 13 from Sundargarh, 12 from Balasore and 11 from Cuttack pushing the active cases to 1,501.