Guwahati, Jan 5: Assam has reported two Omicron cases since Tuesday, state health minister Keshab Mahanta informed mediapersons here on Wednesday evening.
“One of the persons infected with the new variant of COVID-19 is a 13-year-old boy, Rohan Das, from Digaru in the Sonapur area who was detected in Meghalaya on Tuesday. He has returned to Assam. After health officials in Meghalaya informed us about the development, teams were sent to his residence, and his family members were contacted,” the health minister said.
“Contact tracing has been done and measures have been taken to ensure there was no spread in the area…But if at all there is a surge, then that area will be declared a containment zone…However, we have been told that he has tested COVID negative now,” Mahanta said.
The other Omicron-infected person is a 35-year-old Saudi Arabia returnee, Md Mahmud Hussain, who is a resident of Hojai district.
“Once Hussain had tested positive upon arrival here, he was monitored in accordance with the guidelines. His sample was recently sent to the genome sequencing laboratory at the North East Institute of Science and Technology in Jorhat and the report received today had confirmed that he had tested positive for Omicron. However, he has now tested COVID negative,” Mahanta said.
The health minister informed that as many as 1598 RT-PCR samples have been sent to the West Bengal-based National Institute of Biomedical Genomics since December 12, 2021 till date. “Of them, 1438 reports received have confirmed that all the cases are that of the Delta variant and no Omicron case has been detected,” he said.
As many as 3198 international travellers have arrived in Assam between December 1, 2021 and January 4, 2022, of which 52 have tested COVID positive, including one Omicron case that was confirmed on Wednesday.
Assam has seen a sudden surge in COVID positive cases since January 1, 2022. The state reported 591 COVID cases and four deaths on Wednesday.
In the last 10 days, Kamrup Metro district has logged the highest cases at 832, followed by Kamrup (Rural) district (156), Jorhat (105), Dibrugarh (72), Cachar (60), Hojai (50 ) and Nagaon district (50). Majuli has not reported any case in the period while South Salmara has reported just one case in the past 10 days.
The minister informed that as many as 8539 beds are available for patients in the state with 440 currently occupied.
“In Assam, 4991 isolation beds are ready of which 308 are currently occupied while 2613 oxygen supported beds are there with 105 occupied. Besides there are over 900 ICU beds available,” he said.