India’s Omicron tally at 40 with Gujarat reporting fresh case

New Delhi, Dec 14: Health department officials in Gujarat have confirmed that a businessman from Surat has tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19. This is the fourth such case in the state and with this development India's Omicron tally has gone up to 40.

The officials said that the 42 year old businessman had travelled to South Africa and returned on Monday. Prior to this three cases were reported from Jamnagar and this included a 72 year old man who had returned from Zimbabwe.

"He had arrived at Delhi airport from South Africa via Kenya and Abu Dhabi on December 3. He had tested negative for coronavirus," deputy Municipal Commissioner, Health, Ashish Naik said. The person again tested negative on December 4, the official said.

"After he was hospitalised briefly for isolation here, he tested positive for coronavirus on December 8, following which we sent his sample for genome sequencing. He was detected with the Omicron variant on Monday," Naik also said.

Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Chandigarh reported their first cases. Maharashtra and Karnataka also recorded one case each on Sunday.

In Maharashtra and Rajasthan there are 18 and 9 cases while in Karnataka and Gujarat there are three each. Andhra Pradesh has one, Delhi 2 and Chandigarh 1.

The World Health Organisation has said that new strain of COVID-19 has been reported in 63 counties and it will surpass the Delta variant in the spreading speed. WHO said it is not clear why the new strain is spreading so far. Moreover the new strain may reduce the effect of the COVID-19 vaccines. However it is less dangerous than the Delta variant, WHO also said. Ads by

An ICMR official said that scientific evidence for diagnosis and treatment are being reviewed regularly and the treatment remains unchanged at the moment. According to the government, the WHO has highlighted that compliance to public health and social measures is declining globally with the increase in vaccination rates.