India's Omicron variant tally reaches 73; Maharashtra caseload at 32

Four more cases of Covid-19 variant Omicron have been confirmed in Kerala, state Health Minister Veena George said on Wednesday night.

With this the total cases of the variant in Kerala has reached 5 and in India — 73.

Speaking to reporters here, the minister said two of the four news cases were the wife and mother-in-law of the Ernakulam native who was the first person in Kerala to test positive for Omicron.

Of the remaining two, one was a Thiruvananthapuram native who had returned from the UK and the other was a Ernakulam native who had just come back from Congo, the minister said.

She said that contacts of all these persons were being identified and their flight details were being collected.

So far, Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases at 32, followed by Rajasthan at 17.

Omicron cases have also been reported in Karnataka (3), Gujarat (4), Telangana (2), West Bengal (1), Andhra Pradesh (1), Tamil Nadu (1) and Union Territories of Delhi (6) and Chandigarh (1).

The Omicron variant was first detected in India in Bengaluru.

A 24-year-old woman from Kenya and a 23-year-old man from Somalia, who landed in Hyderabad on December 12, have tested positive for the variant, a Telangana health official said on Wednesday.

State Director of Public Health G Srinivasa Rao told reporters that the two foreign nationals were asymptomatic. Though they did not come from 'at-risk' countries, their samples were randomly collected and sent for genome sequencing in line with the protocols.

West Bengal officials said that a seven-year-old boy, resident of Murshidabad district who recently returned from Abu Dhabi via Hyderabad, tested positive for the new coronavirus variant He left for a relative's place in Malda from Kolkata airport.

"The boy flew with his parents from Abu Dhabi to Hyderabad, where he tested positive for Omicron. He had not entered Hyderabad city. He returned to Kolkata on December 11.

Of the total 32 patients in Maharashtra, 25 have been discharged after a negative RT-PCR.