Omicron case: 130 samples collected from Mani Majra area

Chandigarh, December 14

The UT Health Department is taking pre-emptive steps to check the spread of Covid-19 after the city reported its first case of the new Omicron variant with a 20-year-old Italy resident testing positive for it.

A team of the Health Department collected 130 samples from small pockets of Mani Majra, including from the neighbourhood of the Italy returnee.

Dr Suman Singh, Director, Health Services (DHS), Chandigarh, said, “We do not want to take any chances and are testing pockets of Mani Majra to check any cluster outbreak. The results of these samples are awaited.”

The youth, a resident of Italy, landed in India on November 22 and tested negative for Covid-19 on his arrival at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport in Amritsar. He then travelled to Chandigarh to meet his relatives and was staying in the Mani Majra area. Along with him, his five high-risk contacts also tested positive for Covid. As per the protocol, the samples of five high-risk contacts have been sent to the NCDC, Delhi, for genome sequencing and the reports are awaited.

Meanwhile, the Italy returnee is under home quarantine for seven days after has now testing negative for the virus.

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