Kolkata: West Bengal on Wednesday reported its first Omicron case as a seven-year-old boy from Murshidabad district tested positive for the coronavirus variant, a senior official of the health department said.
According to CMOH Ajay Chakraborty, one seven year old child arrived from Abu Dhabi, one of the non high risk countries on December 11 at Hyderabad and then came to Kolkata on the same day and also that the boy was found positive at Hyderabad and his sample was sent for genome sequencing.
“On Wednesday morning after genome sequencing the boy was found positive for Omicron variant, and authority from Hyderabad informed us about the development,” said Chakraborty.
The CMOH also added that the boy was found at kaliachak Malda and was admitted at Malda Medical college along with his father and sister.
“Our state team is working on the contact tracing for the child for the last three days and taking all measures to identify the passengers in the flight and also throughout his travel route. All necessary steps are being taken for contentment and to stop spreading of this infection. Other household contacts were advised to maintain strict home isolation,” further mentioned the CMOH.
Notably, it has been learned that the child and his family had traveled by personal car from Kolkata airport to their native place in Murshidabad.
The state health department said that contact tracing of co-passengers of Omicron positive patient was done today. "We got a list of 37 co-passengers from Air India," it added.
Contact made with 27 passengers . None showing any symptoms. All requested for isolation and 8th day Re test. Some ten passengers did not respond or Could not be contacted. We will try again to track them. Out of the 27 who were contacted 16 belonged to West Bengal. One passenger from Bangalore, 4 from Hyderabad, 3 from Manipur, 1 from Meghalaya and 1 from Mizoram.
The list is being shared with IDSP, New Delhi for sharing with the concerned states.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee while addressing a public rally in North Kolkata asked people to maintain proper covid protocol.
“I have heard that Omicron variants have entered West Bengal but no one should panic about it. This variant spreads faster but is not that deadly. If everyone maintains the protocol then we can curb the virus,” said Mamata.
It can be recalled that last week a 18 year old woman who had returned from the United Kingdom and tested covid positive and the state health department suspected that she could even be affected with the Omicron variant. However, after genome sequencing it was learnt that she was affected by the delta plus variant.
