Three BA.4, one BA.5 cases confirmed in Mumbai

A man undergoes COVID test at Nair hospital. File pic/Ashish Raje

For the first time, Mumbai has confirmed BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of novel Coronavirus's Omicron variant. According to the latest genome sequencing report, three patients have been found to be infected with BA.4 sub-variant and one with BA.5 sub-variant.

All the patients, including two 11-year-old girls and two men in the 40-60 years age group, were infected between May 14 and May 24 this year. They all recovered in home isolation.

On Monday, the BMC released the report of the 12th round of genome sequencing conducted by the Kasturba hospital laboratory. Out of the 279 samples tested, 278 samples were of Omicron variants and one subtype of Delta.

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Of the 279 samples, 202 were from the BMC area, while the remaining samples were from outside. Out of 202 samples, 99.5 per cent or 201 samples were found to be a subtype of Omicron, while one sample was the Delta subtype.

While 88 out of the 202 patients are in the age group of 21 to 40 years, 52 are in the age group of 41 to 60, 32 in the age group of 61 to 80 years and 24 in the age group of 0 to 20, and five patients are in the age group of 81 to 100 years.

The health official said two out of the 202 city patients had received only the first dose of the anti-COVID vaccine, while 129 had taken both the doses and 71 patients were not vaccinated at all. Nine fully vaccinated citizens were hospitalised. Two patients had to be admitted to the intensive care unit and one died.

"The patients infected with BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants didn't have any foreign travel history. Of the three patients infected with BA.4 variant, 11-year-old girls were not eligible for vaccination while the third person did not take the shot as he suffers from allergies. The patient infected with the BA.5 variant received both the doses of the vaccine," said Dr Mangla Gomare, the executive health officer, BMC.

202
No. of samples tested from the BMC area