‘Nearly 30,000 screened at airports in Maharashtra’, says official

After the screenings at various airports in the state, including in Mumbai as seen here on Tuesday, 10 people were found positive for Omicron. Pic/Sameer Markande

Nearly 30,000 travellers have been screened for Covid-19 at several airports in Maharashtra, where 10 people have tested positive for Omicron, the State's Health Surveillance Officer said on Tuesday. Dr Pradeep Awate, the state's health surveillance officer, said that the tally of Omicron cases in Maharashtra now stands at 20.

On Monday, two more people tested positive for Omicron, in Mumbai. The first two cases of the new variant of Covid-19 were reported in the country in Karnataka, followed by one in Gujarat's Jamnagar and then another in Maharashtra's Dombivli. On Sunday, seven cases were reported in Maharashtra's Pune district, of which six belonged to the same family. In Jaipur, nine cases of the Omicron Coronavirus variant were confirmed.

On December 5, Delhi reported its first case of Omicron when a man who arrived from Tanzania was found infected and was admitted to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan hospital in the national capital. The new variant was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 25. As per the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on November 9 this year. On November 26, the WHO named the new Covid-19 variant B.1.1.529, ‘Omicron'. The WHO has classified Omicron as a ‘variant of concern'.

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