Two Omicron cases reported in Telangana

These are the first cases of Omicron variant to get reported in TS. 

Hyderabad: Telangana on Wednesday reported its first Omicron positive Covid-19 infections with two foreign nationals, one from Kenya and the other from Somalia, testing positive for the new variant of SARS-CoV-2.

The Omicron positive patients included a 24-year-old woman, a Kenyan national, and a 23-year-old male from Somalia. A 7-year-old child, who arrived at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), Shamshabad on Sunday, with his family and took a forwarding flight to Kolkata on the same day, also had tested positive for the Omicron variant.

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The Omicron positive patients from Kenya and Somalia, both residents of Tolichowki, have been traced by the surveillance teams of the health department and admitted to Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) Gachibowli for isolation. Both the patients are stable and do not have symptoms related to Covid-19.

The close contacts of the 24-year-old woman national from Kenya were her 33-year-old uncle and 70-year-old father at Tolichowki. The district surveillance teams have kept the close contacts in home isolation and have sent their swab samples for RT-PCR tests. Teams are in the process of identifying the close contacts of the national from Somalia.

“We have also informed the health authorities of West Bengal about the 7-year-old child, who had arrived at the airport along with his family in an international flight and took a domestic flight to Kolkata. We have shared the passenger manifest of flyers, who were travelling with the child and the two-nationals from Kenya and Somalia. All the three of them were in different flights,” Director Public Health (DPH), Dr G Srinivasa Rao said.

Kenya and Somalia are not part of the ten at-risk countries, from where international passengers are screened and mandatory RT-PCR tests are conducted at the RGIA airport since December 1. Both the Omicron patients tested Covid positive only when the surveillance teams of the health department were conducting random tests.

“Our airport surveillance was efficient because both of them tested Covid positive during our random tests. We randomly collect 2 per cent to 5 per cent of swab samples from international passengers who reach Hyderabad from non at-risk countries. During such checks, the two nationals from Kenya and Somalia tested positive. We have informed the MOHFW about the need to thoroughly screen all international passengers,” Dr Rao said.

Based on the guidelines on conducting RT-PCR tests from MOHFW, all the passengers arriving at the international airport from at-risk countries have to undergo RT-PCR tests. However, there are no specific guidelines for international passengers arriving from countries that are not included in the list of at-risk countries. As a result, the State health authorities allowed the two Omicron positive patients to remain in home isolation till their genome sequencing results were processed.

“We allowed them to remain in home quarantine and collected their blood samples and sent them to CDFD for genome sequencing. By Tuesday evening, we were informed that both had tested Omicron positive and we started the process of tracing them,” he added.

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