Jaipur: The persons infected with Omicron XBB.1.5 are under home isolation and recovering well, say officials. While Rajasthan reported one case of Omicron XBB.1.5 variant in Jaipur on Wednesday, three more cases of this sub variant were reported in Gujarat, two of them from Ahmedabad and one from Anand. One more case was reported from Karnataka as well.
Officials of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation told ETV Bharat that both the two infected persons in Ahmedabad had a history of foreign travel. One of them was a 62-year-old man who returned from the US. Another was a woman. They were put in home isolation and recovering. The new found cases of Omicron XBB.1.5 triggered fears as this sub variant is found to be the most prevalent one among the US Covid infections.
According to the Rajasthan Medical Department, the infected person from Sikar there had recently returned from the USA. The patient's samples were sent to SMS Medical College, Jaipur, for genome sequencing, as informed by Dr. Sudhir Bhandari, VC of the Rajasthan University of Health Science and head of the State Advisory Committee for Corona.
Dr. Bhandari further informed that the medical department is investigating the complete travel history of the patient and the people with whom the patient has come in contact so far. Soon a health bulletin regarding this will also be issued by the Medical Department, he said. There was no need to panic as the infected persons were not facing further complications and under home isolation, officials said.
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Under the guidelines issued in Rajasthan due to the recent Covid scare in the country, samples of patients coming from abroad were being sent for genome sequencing. The patient who tested positive had landed in Jaipur from the United States of America. Several cases of XBB.1.5, a sub-variant of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, have been reported in the US. About 40 percent of America's cases are of this variant. This variant spreads 120 percent faster than the BQ1 variant.
After the confirmation of the new variant, the medical department in the state has been put on alert mode. According to INSACOG (Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortium) data, five cases of the Omicron XBB.1.5 variant have been reported in India so far, making this the 5th one.
