E-Paper
West Bengal reports first Omicron case; 7-year-old boy tests positive
According to reports, the boy first tested positive for Covid-19 in Hyderabad and travelled to West Bengal, following which the reports came out positive for Omicron variant.
A seven-year-old boy has tested positive for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus disease in West Bengal, becoming the state's first patient of the new variant, the health department informed on Wednesday.
According to reports, the boy arrived in Murshidabad district from Hyderabad. Both his parents have tested negative for Covid-19, Livemint reported.
According to media reports, the boy had tested postive in Hyderabad and left for West Bengal.
Earlier in the day, two foreign nationals in Telangana's Hyderabad also tested positive for the Omicron variant, a state health official said. The first person has been identified as a 24-year-old Kenyan national who landed on December 12 while the other is a 23-year-old man from Somalia, Telangana's director of public health, G Srinivasa Rao informed.
Both are asymptomatic, he said. The two persons were diagnosed with Omicron infection during genome sequencing. Telangana has a total of three cases now.
With the confirmed case in West Bengal, India has so far detected a total of 64 cases of the Omicron variant. Earlier on Tuesday, Rajasthan and Delhi reported four cases each of the Omicron variant.
The central and state governments and other authorities are on high alert for the new Omicron or B.1.1.529 strain, which was first reported in Botswana on November 11 this year, and subsequently surged in South Africa. It has already been declared a ‘variant of concern’ by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Omicron cases have spiked in European countries, as well as the United Kingdom and is expected to become dominant by next month, experts have said. However, the Indian government has said that the new variant may not be as severe in the country as a majority of citizens have already been infected by the Delta variant.
