41-year-old health worker tests positive for Omicron variant in Gujarat's Mehsana; state count rises to 5

Mehsana, Dec 16: A 41-year-old woman health worker was found infected with the Omicron variant of coronavirus at a village in Vijapur tehsil of Gujarat's Mehsana district on Thursday, officials said.

This is the fifth case of Omicron infection in Gujarat so far. "The woman serves as an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA). She does not have any history of foreign travel, but she recently came in contact with her relatives who had arrived from Zimbabwe, one of the 'at risk' countries," Chief District Health Officer Dr Vishnubhai Patel said.

She is currently undergoing treatment in an isolation ward created in a government hospital at Vadnagar town of Mehsana and her condition is stable, he said.

"The woman recently lost her husband to cancer. To attend the condolence meet, her husband's elder brother and his wife came from Zimbabwe last month. Both of them tested negative for COVID-19 in all the three tests conducted on them," Patel added.

But the authorities decided to carry out contact tracing as a precautionary measure and the woman was found positive for coronavirus on December 10, following which her samples were sent to the Gandhinagar-based Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre (GBRC) for genome sequencing, the official said.

"The woman's genome sequencing on Thursday established that she is infected with the Omicron strain. Her mother-in-law and another relative, who came in her contact, also tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday. We have sent their samples to GBRC to know if they are also infected with this variant," Patel said.

Before this, a 42-year-old businessman from Surat, a 72-year-old NRI from Jamnagar along with his wife and his brother-in-law have been found positive for the Omicron variant earlier this month.