Highlights
- Analysis of Genome Sequencing Report of Delhi’s Omicron Cases
- Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences did the study, the results surprised
- More than 60 percent of the cases have nothing to do with foreign travel
In the national capital Delhi, more than 60 percent of the people infected with the Omicron form of the corona virus had not traveled abroad nor had they come in contact with international travelers. This shows that the community spread of the infection from this new form of Covid was very fast. This has been said in a study conducted by the Delhi government-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS).
This is probably the first study to provide evidence of community spread of Omicron in India. Under this, genome sequencing data of infection cases collected from five districts of Delhi – South, Southeast, Southwest, West and East – between November 25 and December 23 last year were looked at. A total of 332 from different testing laboratories in the five districts were looked at. The samples were sent to ILBS and out of these, 264 samples that passed the ‘quality check’ were analysed.
Of the 264 samples sequenced, 68.9 percent were found to be infected with Delta and its sub-lineages, while the remaining 82 samples (31.06 percent) were infected with Omicron. Of the 82 cases, 46.3 per cent belonged to a total of 14 families and out of these, only four families had traveled abroad. Of the remaining 10 families who did not travel abroad, three were infected by contact with a non-travelled family member.
It said, ‘The remaining 20 persons from the seven families were infected possibly due to community transmission.’ According to the study, 39.1 percent of the Omicron infected people had traveled abroad or had come in contact with international travelers.
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