PremiumThe country's first two Omicron cases – a South African national who has left the country and a local doctor with no travel history – were detected in Karnataka on 2 December
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As many as five more cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus were reported in Karnataka on Thursday, said state health minister K Sudhakar.
"Five more cases of Omicron have been detected in Karnataka today: 19 yr male returning from UK, 36 yr male returning from Delhi, 70 yr female returning from Delhi, 52 yr male returning from Nigeria, 33 yr male returning from South Africa (sic)," Sudhakar tweeted.
All the patients were fully vaccinated against Covid-19 with the Covishield vaccine, according to the state health department.
The country's first two Omicron cases – a South African national who has left the country and a local doctor with no travel history – were detected in Karnataka on 2 December.
A 34-year-old Bengaluru native who returned to the city following a business trip in South Africa had become the third case on 12 December.
Maharashtra has so far reported the highest number of Omicron cases at 32, followed by Rajasthan at 17. These cases have also been reported in the states of Karnataka (8), Gujarat (5), Kerala (5), Telangana (7), Tamil Nadu(1), West Bengal (1) and Andhra Pradesh (1) and Union Territories of Delhi (10) and Chandigarh (1).
The new potentially more contagious B.1.1.529 variant was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on 24 November and has been designated as a "Variant of Concern" by the global body.
To deal with this, several countries have imposed travel restrictions and local lockdown.
India has added several countries to the “at-risk" list from where travellers would need to follow additional measures on arrival in the country, including post-arrival testing for infection.
Under the new norms, passengers coming from “at-risk" countries to six major Indian airports have to compulsorily pre-book for the on-arrival RT-PCR test from 20 December onwards.
The six airports are Delhi, Mumbai Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
According to the Union health ministry, "at-risk" countries include those in Europe including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Hong Kong, China, Ghana, Mauritius, New Zealand and Israel.
Also, two percent of the passengers arriving on flights from other countries are being tested randomly.
