30 new cases of Omicron variant in India push national tally to 145
On Friday, there were 26 new Omicron cases in the country, while the tally was 14 on Thursday. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, there were 12 cases.
With 30 new infections of the Omicron variant detected across India on Saturday — 12 in Telangana, eight in Maharashtra, six in Karnataka, and four in Kerala — India saw, for the third consecutive day, the highest single-day rise in cases of the heavily mutated virus, pushing the national tally to 145.
On Friday, there were 26 new Omicron cases in the country, while the tally was 14 on Thursday. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, there were 12 cases.
Omicron cases have been detected in 12 of India’s regions – Maharashtra has reported 48 cases, Delhi has seen 22, Telangana has reported 20, Rajasthan has 17, Karnataka has 14, Kerala 11, Gujarat has seen seven, Uttar Pradesh two, and one each in Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
Earlier on Sunday, health officials in Uttar Pradesh confirmed that the state had detected its first two cases a day earlier (on Saturday) when a couple tested positive in Ghaziabad. “Contact tracing of nearly 100 people was conducted, and no further infections were found,” said UP additional chief secretary Amit Mohan Prasad.
The 12 new cases detected in Telangana were all among international passengers, officials said, adding that the reports of genome sequencing of samples from three more is awaited. “Of them, six persons came from Kenya, two each from Somalia and the UAE and one each from Ghana and Tanzania,” local officials said.
Maharashtra reported eight new Omicron infections, officials said, adding that 28 of these have already recovered. Four these were in flyers at Mumbai airport — three had arrived from African countries and one from the UK. Three others were a couple from Satara in west Maharashtra and their 13-year-old daughter, who had recently returned from Uganda. The final was a 17-year-old girl from Pune who contact history with another international traveller, officials said.
Meanwhile, officials in Karnataka said that of the six cases detected on Sunday, one was a passenger who returned from the UK, while the remaining five were detected in two clusters in Dakshina Kannada district.
Kerala’s Omicron tally touched 11 when genome sequencing showed that four international travellers — a 17-year-old from the UK, a 44-year-old from Tunisia, a 37-year-old from Tanzania, and a 49-year-old from Kenya – had been infected with the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2.
(With inputs from PTI)
