South Africa Returnee In Maharashtra’s Thane Tests Positive For COVID-19, Sparks Omicron Fear

The fear of the Omicron variant spreading in India has intensified as a man who had recently returned from South Africa has been tested positive for COVID-19 in the Dombivili area of Thane district in Maharashtra, as per media reports.

The samples of the South Africa returnee has been sent to a genome sequencing lab to test if he is carrying the newly detected COVID-19 variant, Omicron, which was initially detected in South Africa. If the new variant is detected, the man will be the first Omicron positive person in India.

The patient has been placed under isolation for now at the Art Gallery isolation centre of the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC). The man had travelled recently travelled to Mumbai after arriving in Delhi from South Africa on November 24.

The patient is currently in a stable condition, as per Dr Pratibha Panpatil, the health official at the KDMC, India Today reports state. The patient’s brother has been tested negative for COVID-19 by the authorities, while other family members will be tested soon.

The family members of the COVID-19 patient have been placed in isolation. This case has intensified the fear of the spread of the new deadly Omicron variant of COVID-19 in the country.

Recently, two travellers from South Africa were tested positive for COVID-19 in Bengaluru, but it was later found that they were infected with the Delta variant of the virus and not the Omicron variant, which is said to have very severe and different symptoms.

Till now, a few cases of the new COVID-19 variant have been reported in several parts of the world, such as South Africa, Botswana, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. The Centre has issued several guidelines related to international travel for states and UTs to follow amid the fear regarding the spread of the Omicron variant.