Rajasthan health officials on Sunday said that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 had been reported in Jaipur. The new variant of the Covid virus was confirmed in nine people who were part of a wedding in the city on November 28.
Medical Education Secretary Vaibhav Galriya said that of the nine, four had arrived from South Africa a few days ago. The four are admitted at Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS), while the other five are in home isolation. Jaipur CMHO Narottam Sharma said that authorities are in the process of shifting the five to RUHS too.
State health officials have dedicated the fifth floor of RUHS to quarantine Omicron cases. “The four had arrived in Jaipur from South Africa on November 25 and attended a wedding on November 28. Then, one of their relatives in Janta Colony had his Covid test conducted on December 1, which returned positive. So our team reached their home and found four more persons to be Covid positive on December 2,” Sharma said.
Dr Ajeet Singh, superintendent of RUHS, said that all four admitted there are fine and “asymptomatic. They don’t have a cough or fever. We’ve been conducting the required tests, CT scan, blood tests, etc. and they’ve returned normal. The four haven’t had any complaints since the beginning, but owing to their travel history and Covid positive status, we had to be cautious.” He said that those in home quarantine too are “doing fine.”
At least 100 persons had participated in the November 28 wedding, but health officials have been able to collect samples of only 34 so far, including those who had arrived from South Africa. “Of these, Omicron has been confirmed in nine through genome sequencing while 25 others are negative,” Galriya said.
The bride had arrived from New Delhi while the groom hails from Ajitgarh in Rajasthan’s Sikar district. The rest of the relatives were in Jaipur. “We traced all eight of them (in Sikar) and they were found to be Covid negative,” Galriya said
Sharma said that the health authorities have also “written to the Health department of New Delhi with the address and other details to conduct contact tracing” of the bride’s family.
On Sunday, Rajasthan reported 17 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total number of active cases to 221.
