VADODARA/SURAT/AHMEDABAD: Two cases of Delta Plus variant have been reported from Gujarat, according to union health ministry officials.
Local government officials confirmed on Friday that one case each was reported from Surat and Vadodara.
Those infected include a 22-year-old medical student of Surat Municipal Corporation’s (SMC) SMIMER Hospital and a 38-year-old woman from Jarod village of Vadodara’s Waghodia taluka.
Manoj Aggarwal, ACS (health & family welfare), told TOI that the state is currently sending almost 25-30% of its daily positive Covid-19 samples for sequencing.
“We are relying heavily on timely input on the variants based on genomic sequencing data from Gujarat Biotechnology & Research Center and National Institute of Virology (NIV).
We have already carried out detailed contact tracing of both cases, and have not found further cases of Delta-plus variant,” he said.
The ACS health said surveillance has been intensified in both Surat and Vadodara.” With regards to the two cases, the presence of the Delta Plus variant was confirmed by the NIV, Pune.
The samples of Surat students were sent on April 10.
He had already recovered but was not vaccinated when nasopharyngeal swab was collected, official sources said.
“The strain can be confirmed only through genome sequencing and we sent 5% of the total samples collected during surveillance.
The samples are randomly selected,” said Dr Ashish Naik, deputy commissioner, health, SMC In the Vadodara case, the woman’s family has roots in Maharashtra.
“We have received the information from the state government that genome sequencing of samples of 38-year-old female resident of Jarod who had tested Covid-19 positive in April in Maharashtra is a case of new Delta plus variant of coronavirus,” said Dr Uday Tilawat, district immunization officer and additional district health officer.
“The female is completely healthy,” he said.
Tilawat added neither the female resident nor her family members had tested positive in Vadodara nor were their samples collected here.
“The family has four members.
Her husband works with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
They had gone to Maharashtra where their samples were tested.
The woman had tested positive there and recovered as well.
They are residing here since May 8.
Currently, all members in the family including the female resident are in good health,” he said, adding that earlier the case was not reported to local authorities.