K’taka on High Alert, Reports of Omicron Suspects Awaited

BENGALURU:
A high alert has been sounded in Karnataka as the health department awaits the test reports of five people who came in contact with an Omicron-infected doctor from Bengaluru.

According to sources, the reports are expected by Friday or Saturday.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has pasted a sticker in front of the infected person’s residence with warnings. The officials have sealed down the area and blocked the road for 100 meters near the residence and declared it a cluster.

The officials have also conducted tests on 32 persons who are residing in the neighborhood. Their test results are expected on Friday. The tests are being conducted as a precautionary measure to stop the new variant from spreading.

Health department sources said that the doctor who was detected with new Covid variant Omicron virus contracted the infection at a medical conference he attended in a five star hotel in the city on November 20.

After attending the conference, symptoms cropped up in the doctor. Three other doctors who attended the conference were detected with Delta variant and test results of genomic sequencing are being awaited for another doctor.

The doctor’s wife, who is also a doctor, has also quarantined herself. The health department is considering staffers, doctors of her hospital as primary contacts.

Five of the contacts that tested positive for Covid-19 include two family members and a colleague. The doctor, a Bommanahalli resident, worked for a hospital on Bannerghatta Road in Bengaluru. The doctor’s wife, their 13-year-old daughter have tested positive. However, his son has tested negative. BBMP sources said he will be subjected to a retest.

The wife and father-in-law of the doctor’s colleague have also tested positive. Health department has sounded a red alert in the wake of fears of the new variant’s feared transmissibility and it’s capability to infect fully vaccinated mass.

Meanwhile, health department officials were relieved after genome sequencing test results of nursing students affected with Covid-19, tested negative.