Kerala reported its first case of Omicron variant of coronavirus on Sunday after a UK returnee, hailing from Ernakulam, tested positive.
Health Minister Veena George said the patient arrived in Kochi on December 6 from the UK after making a stopover in Abu Dhabi. He tested positive on the second day of his arrival.
His wife and mother have also tested positive for coronavirus. They have been isolated, the minister said, even as she dismissed any cause for alarm.
The health condition of the patient is satisfactory.
With this, the number of people who tested positive for the new variant in the country rose to 38.
Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh too reported their first case of Omicron on Sunday, while Maharastra and Karanataka recorded one more case each of the COVID-19 variant.
A 20-year-old fully vaccinated man who arrived in Chandigarh from Italy to meet his relatives and a 34-year old foreign traveller, who came from Ireland to Mumbai and then to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, have tested positive for the variant.
A man who arrived from South Africa became the third person to test positive for the COVID-19 variant in Karnataka, while a 40-year-old man tested positive after returning to Nagpur in Maharashtra from a West African country, taking the state's tally of Omicron cases to 18.
—With inputs from PTI, Onmanorama
