Bengal’s Omicron child patient now tests Covid negative

Kolkata, Dec 16 (SocialNews.XYZ) The seven-year-old boy, who was detected to have coronavirus' Omicron variant, and all other family contacts in West Bengal's Malda, were found negative on Thursday.

The boy, who arrived in Hyderabad from Abu Dhabi, one of the non-high-risk countries, on December 11, had tested positive in Hyderabad and then on the same day, came to Kolkata.

Originally from Kaliachak in Malda, he was admitted to Malda Medical College along with his father and his sister, after Telangana authorities alerted their West Bengal counterparts of the genome sequencing results.

The negative report makes the state Omicron free till now. Incidentally, the boy and his sister had both tested negative as per a test from a private lab at Malda on December 12.

Asked whether the boy and his family will be discharged, a senior state Health Department official said: "Yes, as per norm, two reports found negative... eligible for home quarantine for another week."

According to the state Health Department after the positive Omicron report came from Hyderabad, contact tracing was done on Wednesday and samples were collected from the child, his sister, his father, mother, and grandmother for testing.

Other household contacts all were advised to maintain strict home isolation.

The genome sequencing of two cases that were found so far came negative on Thursday.

"Genome sequencing report of the traveller from Bangladesh has been received just now. Omicron variant is not detected in this sample. Variant detected is AY.4 which is a sub-lineage of Delta variant," the Health Department official said.

Source: IANS