12 more international passengers hit by Covid-19: Telangana govt

Twelve more passengers who arrived at the international airport here from the countries declared at risk by the Centre were found positive for COVID-19 and their samples sent for genome sequencing in view of Omicron variant threat, the Telangana government said on Friday.

The 12 cases were in addition to a passenger who tested positive for the virus earlier.

The genome sequencing reports of the 13 passengers were yet to be received, a bulletin said.

Since the last few days, the State government strengthened the testing mechanism at the Hyderabad international airport, among other measures, in the wake of 'Omicron' threat.

RT-PCR tests are being conducted on passengers arriving from the 11 countries which have been declared at risk by the Centre.

Meanwhile, Telangana reported 198 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 6,76,574 while the death toll rose to 3,997 with two more fatalities.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 82 followed by Ranga Reddy (18) and Sangareddy (15) districts, the bulletin said while providing details as of 5.30 PM on Friday.

It said 153 people recovered from the infectious disease today. The cumulative number of recoveries till date was 6,68,854.

The number of active cases was 3,723, the bulletin said.

It said 39,140 samples were tested during the day and the total number of samples tested till date was 2,86,98,967.

The samples tested per million population were 7,71,063.

The case fatality rate in the State was 0.59 per cent and the recovery rate 98.88 per cent.