Tamil Nadu on Wednesday reported the first case of Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 after a 47-year-old man returning from Nigeria on December 10 tested positive in the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) at the State Public Health Lab’s facility in Chennai. State Health minister M Subramaniam made the announcement to newspersons late last night.
The person’s sample has also been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for confirmation. “The WSG results of the samples from six family members and a co-passenger are awaited,” the Minister said.
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The person who tested positive for Omicron was admitted to the Government Corona Hospital, Guindy. “Six of his family members, including a 16-year-old, had also tested positive. Initial analysis of their samples also identified the S-gene dropout,” the Minister said.
Meanwhile, daily coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday declined further to 640 from 649 on Tuesday. After 692 persons were discharged, the number of active cases was 7,548. There were 11 deaths registered and 1,02,775 samples tested. New cases in Chennai were 126 (123) and in Coimbatore declined to 106 (107).