Gujarat has reported its fifth Omicron case on Thursday. A woman from Vadnagar in Mehsana district of North Gujarat had contracted Covid-19, and her samples were sent for genome sequencing at the Gujarat Biotechnology Research Center (GBRC), which confirmed the Omicron variant.

The woman, said to be an ASHA worker (Accredited Social Health Activist) deployed in the rural areas, had no overseas travel history, but authorities informed that she had come in contact with a returnee from Zimbabwe earlier this month.

"The government has conducted contact tracing and testing. It was found that her mother-in-law and a neighbour had tested positive for Covid-19. Their samples have been sent for genome sequencing to ascertain the variant," said Manoj Aggarwal, Additional Chief Secretary - Health, Government of Gujarat told media persons on Thursday.

The latest case takes the Omicron tally to five in Gujarat. Earlier three cases were reported from Jamnagar and one from Surat. The Surat patient has recovered from Covid-19 and tested negative. However, he is still kept under isolation as a measure of precaution. "The Surat case of Omicron is Covid-19 negative now. But he is still under isolation because the Omicron variant is new to us. So we are keeping a constant watch over it," he said.

Notably, on Wednesday, Gujarat conducted over 70,000 tests across the State, of which 53 were positive. Gujarat's total active cases are now 555 as on December 15. The Covid-19 death toll as per the State health department bulletin was 10,100. However, the State government, has admitted that it has processed 22,000 claims for ₹50,000 compensation as per the Supreme Court guidelines.

As per the district-wise positivity data shared by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare shows Jamnagar district with 0.84 per cent positivity. Total seven districts in the State have positivity rate of over 0.2 per cent, higher than the state average of 0.15 per cent as on December 15. However, a fortnight ago on November 28, only four districts had a positivity rate of 0.2 per cent or above. The share of RT-PCR tests in the overall testing is about 80 per cent on average across the state, the remaining tests are conducted through Rapid Antigen Test kits.

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