Omicron likely less severe in India due to Vaccination , prior Infections says Union Health Ministry .
The Union health ministry on Friday said the severity of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) from the Omicron variant in India could be low due to the “fast pace” of vaccination and high exposure to the Delta variant. The ministry said that the new variant of concern is likely to spread to more countries including India but the scale and magnitude of the rise in infections is still not clear.
“Given the fast pace of vaccination in India and high exposure to Delta variant as evidenced by high seropositivity, the severity of the disease is anticipated to be low,” the ministry said in a statement. “However, scientific evidence is still evolving.”
The ministry highlighted that Omicron has been declared a variant of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) based on the observed mutations, their predicted features of increased transmission and immune evasion, and preliminary evidence of detrimental change in Covid-19 epidemiology, such as increased reinfections.
The health ministry on Thursday confirmed its first cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant in two people and officials said one passenger had arrived from South Africa and the other, a person who had not travelled to the country at all.
The ministry said the cases involved two men in the southern Karnataka state, a 66-year-old man who had travelled to India from South Africa and a 46-year-old doctor.
Hundreds of contacts of the two men have been traced and tested for the virus and at least five people have tested positive for the virus.
Health officials said the 66-year-old man who tested positive was asked to self-isolate in the hotel where he was staying because he had no symptoms.
India has already classified several countries as “at-risk” in response to the Omicron variant, and travellers from those countries are being tested after they arrive in India.
In addition, India is testing 2 percent of all other international travellers randomly. Genome sequencing is also being done to detect the variant. Nearly 8,000 passengers have been tested since Wednesday.
