Covid-19: 125 passengers from Omicron-affected countries traced for re-testing

The BBMP has begun tracing 125 people who arrived from three Omicron-affected countries between November 1 and 27 to conduct a re-test for the Covid variant.

While 93 of them came from South Africa, 15 came from Botswana and 17 arrived from Hong Kong; all three countries have been reporting the Omicron variant.

The South Zone has two arrivals from South Africa and one from Botswana for re-test.

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“One has already left for South Africa, while the sample of the other has been sent for testing at Aster lab,” said Dr Shivakumar, health officer, South Zone. “A sample of the passenger from Botswana residing in Jayanagar could not be taken since he has gone to Sadashivanagar. We have to take it from there.”

The West Zone had just one South African passenger, but he turned out to be a resident of Muthyalanagar in RR Nagar Zone. “We have informed RR Nagar officials who said they would test the passenger,” said B Shivaswamy, joint commissioner, West Zone.

Dr Surendra, deputy health officer, Mahadevapura, said samples of five out of nine passengers in the zone have been taken. “Three of them are away in Delhi. We have called them by phone. One passenger’s house is locked. Eight of them are from South Africa and one from Hong Kong,” he said.

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He said that the passengers have been outside since their arrival 15 days ago. “But we have asked them to stay home after we collected their samples,” he added. “We received the Omicron advisory on Wednesday and got the list today. The passengers would have obviously generated lots of contacts by now.” Two teams, formed in the Yelahanka Zone, will be stationed at the Yelahanka railway station.

“We have two South African passengers and they tested negative. But we suspect more passengers may have taken the rail route after arriving in the airports of other cities. We will randomly test and ask for their travel history and if they had been to any affected country,” said a zonal health official.

The swab sample of a Hong Kong passenger has been collected in Bommanahalli.

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Sample ‘different’ from Delta, being tested, says Sudhakar  

Karnataka health minister K Sudhakar said that the sample of one of the two people who arrived from South Africa is “different” from the Delta variant.

“There is a 63-year-old man whose name I should not disclose. His report is a bit different. It appears different from the Delta variant. We will discuss it with the ICMR officials and will let people know the details by the evening,” the minister said.

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Prof Satyajit Mayor, Director, National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), said the institute had received two samples on Saturday that have not yet been sequenced since genomic sequencing takes three days. “The analysis will be available only on Wednesday,” he told DH.

BBMP Special Commissioner (Health) Dr Trilok Chandra said initial reports from Molecular Solutions said the sample is a little different from Delta.

“The second sample was sent to NCBS two days ago and the report is awaited,” he said.

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