2 relatives of Gujarat's 1st Omicron case also test positive

Gujarat has now three Omicron cases after the reports of two relatives of the state's first Omicron patient came as positive, officials said on Friday.

The health authorities had detected two of the Zimbabwe-returned man's relatives as Covid positive on Sunday. Their swab samples were sent for Omicron testing, which have turned out to be positive for the new strain.

The Nodal officer for Corona, GG Hospital Jamnagar, Dr. S Chatterjee told IANS, "After the 72-year-old Zimbabwe resident's results turned out to be omicron positive, the results of his wife (47) and his brother-in-law (35) have also tested positive. Both of them are in isolation since they were detected Covid-19 infected."

All the three Omicron positive persons' samples were sent for genome sequencing to the Gujarat Biotechnology Research (GBR) Laboratory in Gandhinagar.

"Since both the wife of the Zimbabwe patient and her brother were detected in the early stages and quickly isolated, there are no chances that they could have infected others," added Chatterjee.

A 72-year-old man in the Morakda village near Jamnagar city of Gujarat was found to be Omicron positive last Saturday. Following his return from Zimbabwe where he resides, one of the at-risk countries identified by the authorities, the Gujarat health authorities had carried out contact tracing. He arrived on November 28 to meet his father-in-law. After he got a fever, his doctors advised him to get an RT-PCR test done. As mandated, the private laboratory informed the health authorities that his report was Covid-19 positive. -IANS