Chennai: The whole genome sequencing has confirmed the Omicron variant at least 33 Covid -19 patients in Tamil Nadu, Minister of Health MA Subramanian said here on Thursday.
With this, 34 patients –passenger with international travel history and their close contact – found positively for a new variant.
“We have received confirmation that 33 more people have brought a new variant.
Previously one patient was tested positive for Omicron,” Subramanian said.
In accordance with the ICMR protocol, all international passengers from risky countries must undergo screening at the airport.
Those who tested negatively allowed the quarantine of Domiciliary and were ordered to repeat the eighth day.
Those who tested positively will be sent to hospitals for isolation, and their samples will be sent to the sequencing of the intact genomes to the laboratory in Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune.
In addition, at least 2% of passengers from other countries are tested.
So far, 114 international passengers have been positively tested for Covid-19 after the intensifying authority checks behind a new variant, and drop s-genes are recorded in 57 samples.
Omicron variants don’t have s-genes.
So, s-genes are not detected during the test.
Dropout S-Gen, although not a certain indicator, is considered a proxy indicator for a new variant.