JOIN US3 positive Covid-19 cases at pharma unit visited by India's first Omicron patient
At least three people at a factory unit in Bommasandra, South Bengaluru, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, days after the place was visited by India’s first Omicron case.
The unit belongs to Adcock Ingram Ltd, a South African pharmaceutical firm. According to Bengaluru Urban district officials, 66-year-old Mahesh C (name changed), the South African national and a registered director of the firm, visited the facility on November 24 for a boardroom meeting. The state government had identified him as the first patient with Omicron in the country on December 2.
Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner J Manjunath said during his visit to the unit he found that the meeting was attended by five to six other people. "However, none of them has tested positive for the virus. They told us they were wearing masks and were sitting well apart," he said, adding, however, that seven days had already elapsed by the time these people were tested on December 3.
Nevertheless, health officials generated a list of six primary contacts and 42 secondary contacts for testing, on top of which they selected 255 factory employees for random testing.
"It is during this random testing that three members of the support staff were found to be positive," Manjunath said, adding that their samples have been sent for genomic sequencing.
All three individuals have been described as being security guards employed at the firm. "Their test result came up as positive on Saturday," said the Urban District Health Officer, Dr G A Srinivas.
Officials stressed that all of the boardroom room plus nearly all of the workforce at the factory has been vaccinated with both doses, including the positive cases. "The positive cases are completely asymptomatic," Manjunath said, adding, however, that the workforce and the contacts will be tested again on the seventh day, which falls on December 11 and 12.
This could result in more cases being found as seventh-day testing in other clusters has uncovered more cases. At The International School Bengaluru (TISB), seventh-day testing found that five additional staff members were positive for the disease on Saturday, raising the total number of positive cases at this school to 40. At the Spurthy College of Nursing, seven additional cases were also registered on Saturday, raising the total caseload at this institute to 19.
New cluster at E-City college, hostel
A new cluster of eight cases was identified on Sunday at the NTTF NEC. While two cases were found at the college, six were detected at the hostel. Both are located in Electronics City.
Check out latest coronavirus-related videos from DH: