12 Persons with Suspected Omicron Infection Admitted in Delhi Hospital
NEW DELHI, Dec 3: Twelve persons who arrived on international flights in the last three days have been admitted in a Delhi hospital on suspicion of them being infected by Omicron variant. Their samples have been sent for genome testing to confirm whether they are infected with the Omicron strain.
All are at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital in Delhi. Eight were hospitalised on Thursday after they tested positive for Covid while four more were admitted on Friday but their Covid tests are not out yet.
“Four are from the UK, four from France, some from Tanzania, one from Belgium. All are stable, only one has fever,” medical director of the hospital said. He said samples have been sent for genome testing and whether any of them is Omicron-infected will be known in five or six days.
Two Omicron cases have been confirmed in India so far, both in Karnataka. One of them is a 46-year-old fully vaccinated doctor from Bengaluru with no travel history. He developed symptoms of fever and body ache on November 21.
The other Omicron patient is a 66-year-old South African who came to India with a negative Covid report on November 20 and left for Dubai on a flight seven days later. The Karnataka government has filed a case alleging he “escaped” from a hotel and took a flight out.
In Tamil Nadu, two international air travellers, including a child, from ‘at risk’ nations tested positive for Covid early on Friday morning. The state government has denied reports that they were cases of Omicron, clarifying that samples have been sent for genome testing.
A Karnataka government official said one of the two men found positive for Omicron in Karnataka “escaped” after securing a Covid negative certificate from a private lab. The state is trying to track down 10 more people who reportedly went missing from the airport. “By tonight all 10 people who have reportedly gone missing should be traced and they should be tested. Travelers will not be allowed to leave the airport until their report is out,” Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashok said after a top level meeting on Omicron.
The 66-year-old South African national found to be Omicron-infected “fled,” the minister said. Around 57 others who arrived around the same time will also be tested, even though they all produced negative RT-PCR tests on arrival. The 10 people labelled “missing” have switched off their phones and cannot be contacted. “All will now be tested because one of them tested positive for Omicron even after showing a negative Covid test,” said the minister. “We’ve lodged a complaint with the police and they will see what went wrong at the Shangri-La hotel, from where the person escaped,” said the minister. The man, fully vaccinated, checked into the hotel the day he arrived and was found to be positive for COVID-19. He had arrived with a negative Covid test report.
When a government doctor visited him at the hotel, he was found to be asymptomatic and was advised to self-isolate. But since he was from one of the nations designated “at-risk”, his samples were collected again and sent for genome sequencing on November 22.
Twenty-four people who came in contact with him were tested and found to be negative. The authorities also tested 240 secondary contacts – people who had come in contact with the primary contacts of the patient – and found them to be negative as well. On November 23, the man took another test at a private lab and the result came back negative. On November 27, around midnight, he checked out of the hotel, took a cab to the airport and boarded a flight to Dubai. Omicron was confirmed when he had already left.
(Manas Dasgupta)
