CHENNAI/TIRUCHY: A 47-year-old man, who returned to Chennai from Nigeria via Doha, and six of his contacts have tested positive for Covid-19 with an S-gene target failure, suggesting they have been infected by the Omicron variant.
The man had undergone a ‘random test’ for Covid-19 at the airport, and was sent home. His sample, which was sent for a TaqPath RT-PCR test at the State Public Health Laboratory, showed an S-gene drop – a marker of the Omicron variant. Subsequently, samples of six of his contacts also showed the S-gene drop.
A senior doctor at the Government Corona Hospital at King Institute at Guindy, where the patients have been isolated, said the man returned to Chennai on December 10, and tested positive on December 11. The other six tested positive on December 13.
The samples have now been sent to the InStem in Bengaluru for whole genome sequencing to confirm if they have been infected by the variant, said Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Tuesday.
Man was tested at random, says Health Secretary
The patients had mild symptoms like cold, cough and mild body pain,” said the Health Minister. Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said the man was only tested at random at the airport as he came from Nigeria, a country in the ‘non-risk’ category for the variant. Random testing is done when a person from non-risk countries has a high temperature during screening, he said.
InStem, Bengaluru was requested to quickly process the samples Doctors at the Government Corona Hospital in King Institute said the seven were asymptomatic. The Health Minister said 37 international travellers tested positive upon arrival since the screening for Omicron began. Samples were sent for genome sequencing. Four samples showed patients had Delta variant, while results of others are awaited, he said.
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