HYDERABAD: Telangana became the seventh state in the country to report Omicron cases with state health authorities reporting that they found three positive cases for the Covid variant among international travellers who arrived at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in the city on Wednesday.
Those who tested positive for the Omicron variant arrived in the city on three different international flights on December 12. Between them, according to government authorities, the three flights were reported to have carried some 500 passengers and crew.
While two of the Omicron cases were of a Kenyan woman, and a Somali man who were in the city for temporary residence, the third was that of a seven-year-old Indian who with family, transited through Hyderabad and flew to Kolkata after arriving in an international flight.
All three cases of persons who arrived into the city from non-risk countries for the Omicron variant, resulting in serious concern among the health authorities over the possibility of more such cases from international air passengers who arrived from such nations into the city, or transited through the city.
Director of public health and family welfare Dr G. Srinivasa Rao, addressing a hurriedly called press conference in the morning, told reporters that the woman from Kenya, a 24-year-old, was immediately shifted after receipt of her Omicron status report after genome sequencing was received late on Tuesday night. Two of her family were also shifted along with her from their residence in Paramount Hills Colony in the Tolichowki area, to the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences at Gachibowli for testing and to keep them in isolation as potential Omicron variant carriers.
The second case, that of a 23-year-old Somali man led to a chase by the police who formed special teams to trace him after he was reported missing from a private hospital in Somajiguda. His missing status was informed by the health officials to the city police, who, after a two-hour search in the city, located him in Paramount Hills Colony, after which he was taken to TIMS and admitted to the special Omicron ward in the hospital.
Efforts were on to trace and track the movements of the contacts of both Omicron positive patients, Srinivasa Rao said.
By afternoon, special health teams from the GHMC, and the health department descended on Paramount Hills Colony for taking up sanitizing the colony, and testing of all residents for Covid. Any Covid positive samples found in people from the colony will be sent for genome sequencing to determine if the Omicron variant spread to other residents from the two Omicron positive foreign nationals.
The woman from Kenya arrived in Hyderabad after transiting through Abu Dhabi, and the Somali man came to the city via Sharjah.
Meanwhile, the 7-year-old-boy who arrived with his family at the RGI Airport on his way to Kolkata, tested positive for Omicron and took a connecting flight to Kolkata the same night. Srinivasa Rao said the Bengal government had been informed about the family for follow up action.
