New Delhi: An Omicron case has been confirmed in the national capital, Delhi’s health minister Satyendar Jain informed on Sunday (December 5, 2021).
“First omicron case detected in Delhi. The patient admitted to LNJP Hospital had returned from Tanzania,” Jain said.
Earlier on Saturday, the country had recorded two cases of Omicron with a 72-year-old NRI man from Gujarat and a 33-year-old man from Maharashtra found infected with the new strain after they came from the “at-risk” countries of Zimbabwe and South Africa respectively.
While Gujarat’s Commissioner of Health Jai Prakash Shivhare confirmed that the elderly Non-resident Indian from Jamnagar city has tested positive for the Omicron variant, Maharashtra health department director Dr Archana Patil confirmed that a man from Kalyan Dombivli municipal area near Mumbai was found infected by the potentially contagious variant.
It was the first case of Omicron for the two western states.
India’s first two cases of the Omicron variant were reported on Thursday in Karnataka in a 66-year-old South African flyer and a 46-year-old Bengaluru doctor with no travel history and both men fully vaccinated.
Half of India’s adult population fully vaccinated
Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has announced that over 50 per cent of India’s eligible adult population is now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. As per the latest reports, the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country has exceeded 127.61 crore.
The Union Health Ministry officials have said that over 84.8 per cent of the adult population in India has been administered the first dose.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with health care workers (HCWs) getting inoculated in the first phase. The vaccination of front line workers (FLWs) started from February 2.
The next phase of COVID-19 vaccination had then commenced from March 1 for people over 60 years of age and those aged 45 and above with specified co-morbid conditions.
The country had then launched vaccination for all people aged more than 45 years from April 1.
The government had then decided to expand its vaccination drive by allowing everyone above 18 to be vaccinated from May 1.
