Omicron cases: 2 children test Covid +ve in Indore, they came back from Nigeria
The children, a 14-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother, went to Nigeria with their mother to meet their father and came back to Indore on December 6 via New Delhi, Dr Amit Malakar, the nodal officer of Covid-19 in the district, said.
Two children have tested positive for Covid-19 in Madhya Pradesh's Indore after they came back from Nigeria five days back, amid rising cases of Omicron in India, news agency PTI reported on Saturday.
Till now, Madhya Pradesh has not reported a single case of the variant.
The children, a 14-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother, went to Nigeria with their mother to meet their father and came back to Indore on December 6 via New Delhi, Dr Amit Malakar, the nodal officer of Covid-19 in the district, said.
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Dr Malakar said after their test reports came in, the infected siblings were shifted to a hospital and their samples are being sent to Delhi's National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for genome sequencing to know whether they are carrying the Omicron variant.
He added that the children and their mother live in Indore, while the father is working in Nigeria.
"Although the mother of the two children was not found infected with coronavirus, we have taken her sample for re-examination as a precaution," the Covid-19 nodal officer of the district also told PTI.
At the beginning of December, the Indore health department was trying to trace 100 foreign returnees who came back to the district in the last month. "Samples of the 50 traced persons were tested and none of them was found to be infected with Covid-19," chief medical and health officer Dr BS Saitya said on December 1.
Meanwhile, in another Madhya Pradesh district Jabalpur, a 28-year-old German national tested positive for Covid-19 and his samples were sent for genome sequencing. As the man attended a wedding, samples of 50 more people were collected for testing, district contact officer Dr D Mohanty said on Tuesday.
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The Madhya Pradesh government has stepped up surveillance at the state's borders and precautionary measures are being taken given the Omicron cases reported in neighbouring states, home minister Narottam Mishra said on Monday.
Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat- which share their borders with Madhya Pradesh, have reported cases of the variant.
“Following cases of Omicron in neighbouring states, we are increasing the watch at Madhya Pradesh borders and taking precautions with utmost concern,” Mishra said and urged people to be careful.
(With PTI inputs)