Chennai: Tamil Nadu reported its first case of Omicron variant of coronavirus on Wednesday.
State Health Minister Ma Subramanian said a Chennai man who returned from Nigeria has tested positive for Omicron.
Speaking to reporters, the minister said, "The 47-year-old man, along with six of his family members, had arrived here from Nigeria via Doha on December 10. All of them had tested positive for the virus. They were asymptomatic and were admitted to The King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research in Chennai."
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"In the initial level of testing of their sampling, there was S-gene drop raising the suspicion of being infected by Omicron. We received the results sent from the National Institute of Virology a few minutes back. The passenger has tested positive for Omicron. We suspect six of his family members, along with a 16-year-old child, also to be positive for Omicron. We have requested the Bengaluru lab to process the genome sequencing and return the results as early as possible," he further said.
Health department sources said that he was part of the 2 per cent who undergo random checks among passengers in the four international airports in Tamil Nadu, to detect the infection from non-risk countries.
Nigeria is not yet part of the Central government's 'at risk' countries list.
