Chennai: Tamil Nadu's first Omicron subvariant BA.4 has been detected in a patient in Navalur of Chennai, said Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Saturday. However, he also said that the patient has recovered from the infection and none of his contacts tested positive for the virus.
On Saturday, Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said, “Till now, there are no COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospitals. We are testing and tracking only COVID clusters and sending their samples for genome sequencing.”
“Likewise, one of the samples sent as part of a cluster tested positive for Omicron subvariant BA.4. As soon as the results arrived, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Radhakrishnan rushed to Navalur to check on the patient's health status. However, the patient recovered and none of his close contacts are positive for coronavirus,” he said.
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India's first case of Omicron subvariant BA.4 was confirmed in Hyderabad on Friday. The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) confirmed the first case of BA.4 strain of coronavirus.
The samples of the person were sent to genome sequencing since he came in contact with a person who tested positive for BA.4 on a flight from South Africa to Hyderabad. The sample of the patient was collected on May 9.
Till now, BA.4 and BA.5 variants of Omicron have been detected in South Africa, US and Europe.
On Saturday, India recorded 2,323 new coronavirus infections taking the total number of cases in the country to 4,31,34,145. The country's total active cases stand at 14,996.
It also reported 25 deaths on Saturday.