New Delhi: In the national capital Delhi, more than 60 percent of the people infected with the Omicron form of the corona virus did not travel abroad nor did they come in contact with international travelers. . This suggests that the community spread of infection from this new form of COVID was very rapid. 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. It looked at genome sequencing data of cases of infection collected from five districts of Delhi – South, Southeast, Southwest, West and East – between November 25 and December 23 last year. A total of 332 samples were sent to ILBS from various testing laboratories in five districts and out of these, 264 samples passed the “quality check” were analysed.
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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 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.
“The remaining 20 persons from the seven families were infected possibly due to community transmission,” it said. According to the study, 39.1 percent of Omicron infected people had traveled abroad and/or had come in contact with international travelers. A total of 1,56,63,10,110 doses of COVID vaccine have been given. 57,29,760 people were vaccinated till 7 pm on Saturday.(Agency)