Lagatar24 Desk
Mumbai, Dec3: Nine international travelers, including one from South Africa, who arrived at the Mumbai International Airport between 10 November and 2 December have tested positive for COVID-19, informed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Friday.
The BMC has sent their samples for genome sequencing to find out if they are positive fo the new COVID-19 variant.
Meanwhile, Health Ministry on Thursday confirmed that two cases of the newly found and dreaded variant of COVID-19, ‘Omicron’ have been detected in India. Both the cases have been reported in Karnataka with the patients being two men aged 66 and 46.
Notably, the World Health Organization on November 26 named the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, which has been detected in South Africa, as Omicron. This new variant is considered more dangerous than the delta variant. It has been declared as a ‘variant of concern’ by the WHO.
Following the reports about this new variant, the United States, the European Union, Canada, Israel and other countries have restricted travel from several southern African nations over the health concerns.