Two cases of Omicron have been reported in Karnataka, confirmed health ministry on Wednesday.
The health ministry said contact tracing of the two -- a 66-year-old and a 46-year-old -- is being done. The health ministry said both the individuals had mild symptoms. The two people had returned from South Africa on November 11 and 20.
The health ministry said all primary and secondary contacts of both Omicron cases detected in Karnataka, have been traced and tested.
"Two cases of Omicron have been detected in Karnataka so far through genome-sequencing effort of INSACOG consortium of 37 laboratories established by the Ministry of Health. We need not panic, but awareness is absolutely essential. Covid-appropirate behaviour is required," Balram Bhargava, DG ICMR.
The health ministry has said that the new Omicron variant is possibly 500 per cent more competitively infectious and has more than 2 times the number of bad spike mutations than the Delta variant.
Addressing a routine press conference on Covid-19 on Thursday, Joint Secretary (MoHFW) Lav Agarwal said that there is a surge in cases globally with Europe contributing to 70 per cent of the cases
So far, 373 cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in 29 nations, Agarwal said, adding that 2 such confirmed cases have been found in Karnataka and contact tracing is being done.
"There are more than 45-52 mutations and 26-32 changes in the spike. RT-PCR test can be used as an early detection of this mutation. Cell attachment affinity is greater than other variants," he said.