Seven new Omicron cases found in Maha including three-year-old child; tally rises to 17

Maharashtra reported seven new cases of Omicron on Friday including a three-and-half-year-old child which took the tally of such infections to 17. A resident of Dharavi area who recently returned from Tanzania was found to have contracted the new variant, officials said.

Maharashtra:Maharashtra reported 7 new cases of Omicron on Friday including a three-and-half-year-old child, the State Health Department informed.

Of the new cases, three were from Mumbai and four were from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation.

With the new cases, the total Omicron cases in the state stand at 17 now.

The three patients from Mumbai were all male, aged 48, 25 and 37 with recent travel history of Tanzania, the UK and South Africa-Nairobi, respectively, the health department said.

As per the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the traveller who returned from Tanzania was a resident of the densely-populated Dharavi slum area, but he was asymptomatic and isolated before he mingled in the community.

The 49-year-old man, who is a `Maulavi' (Muslim cleric), landed in Mumbai from Tanzania on December 4 and his samples were sent for genome sequencing when he tested positive for coronavirus.

Tanzania does not figure in the list of `at-risk' countries, but the Dharavi resident tested positive for COVID-19 during the mandatory random checking of two per cent of arrivals at the Mumbai airport.

When his test came out positive, a medical team from G-North ward (where Dharavi falls) tracked him down immediately.

The man was shifted to BMC-run Seven Hills hospital, the official said, adding that he was asymptomatic and is not vaccinated.

Dharavi in central Mumbai is known as the biggest slum in Asia where over six lakh people live in a 2.5 square km area.

Other four new patients were reported from the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) in Pune district. They are all contacts of three Nigerian women who were found to have Omicron infection earlier, officials said.

(With agency inputs)