MP REPORTS FIRST OMICRON CASE WITH 8 INFECTIONS IN INDORE DISTT

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh reported its first cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus on Sunday with state Home Minister Narottam Mishra saying that eight foreign returnees were found infected with the new strain in Indore, of whom six have already been discharged after recovery. Opposition Congress questioned the BJP government in the state over its “delay” in revealing the information about the Omicron cases, while the ruling party hit back saying that the process of genome sequencing of samples takes time.“Eight Omicron cases have been found in Indore. Out of these patients, six have recovered and have been discharged while two are undergoing treatment,” Mishra, who is also the state government’s spokesman, told reporters. Around 3,000 people returned to Indore from abroad recently and 26 of them were found to be infected with coronavirus.

“Omicron was confirmed in the genome sequencing of eight of these people,” he said.

The samples of these people, who returned to the state’s industrial hub Indore from different countries, were taken between December 17 and 21, according to officials. These infected people included two men aged 20 and 30 years, who came from New York (US) on December 14 and 19 respectively, a 23-year-old woman who arrived from London (UK) on December 14, two women aged 33 and 26 who returned from Tanzania (east Africa) on December 19, a 33-year-old woman who returned from Ghana (west Africa) on December 17, and two men aged 26 and 31 years, who arrived from Dubai on December 13 and 18 respectively, they said. On Saturday, Madhya Pradesh reported 42 new cases of coronavirus disease, raising the state’s infection tally to 7,93,655, while the death toll remained unchanged at 10,532, an official earlier said.