- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA on Wednesday (5) recorded its first Covid-19 death linked to the fast-spreading and more infectious Omicron variant in the western state of Rajasthan, an official in the country’s health ministry said.
Indian news channel NDTV reported that the man, identified as Laxminarayan Nagar, was 73 years old.
He had tested positive for Covid on December 15 and was in hospital since then. He reportedly had comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, among others. His samples were sent for genome sequencing.
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He was found Covid negative on December 21 and with two doses of the vaccine, he had no significant contact and travel history.
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The channel cited health ministry officials saying the death of Nagar will be counted as one caused by Omicron. The state government of Rajasthan also confirmed it to be a death caused by the variant.
The results of genome-sequencing came out on December 25 and Nagar was found to be affected by Omicron. He died six days later on December 31, NDTV added.
India logged 243 new cases of the Omicron variant in the last 24 hours, taking the total to more than 2,130. Of these, 828 people have recovered from the new strain till the latest updates came.
The states of Maharashtra and Delhi are the worst-hit with the new variant.
Among the states and union territories (UTs) of India that have reported the Omicron infection so far, Maharashtra tops the list with 653 cases of Omicron variant. Of them, 259 patients have been discharged, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
Delhi’s tally has reached 464 with 82 cases of the Omicron variant detected in the last 24 hours. Fifty-four of them have been discharged from the hospital.
The southern state of Kerala has recorded 185 cases. States such as Rajasthan have detected 174 Omicron cases with 88 getting discharged. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have reported 154 and 121 Omicron cases, respectively.
The health ministry said the Omicron infection has so far affected 24 states and UTs.
In December, a 52-year-old man, who recently travelled to Nigeria from India, was found to be affected by the Omicron variant after he died of a heart attack in a hospital on the outskirts of Pune in Maharashtra.
The state’s public health department later asserted that the man’s death was caused by “non-Covid reasons” and it was a coincidence that his sample reports received from the National Institute of Virology showed that he tested positive for the new variant.
