11 Omicron sub-variants found during testing of international travellers; all earlier reported in India

Eleven Omicron sub-variants were found among the 124 international travellers who tested positive for COVID-19 between December 24 and January 3 and the presence of all these variants was earlier reported in India, official sources said on Thursday.

They said 19,227 international travellers were tested at airports, sea ports and land ports in said period. 124 of them were found Covid positive and put in isolation.

The sources said of the 124 positive samples, the genome-sequencing results of 40 were received, of which XBB was found in 14 samples and BF 7.4.1 in one sample.

Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya urged citizens not to panic unnecessarily but remain alert, follow the directives issued by the government and not get carried away by misleading reports related to Covid.

The government has made random Covid tests mandatory for two per cent of the passengers arriving on each international flight, irrespective of their port of departure, since December 24.

Besides, passengers arriving in India from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand are being mandatorily required to provide Covid-negative reports from January 1.

The test has to be conducted not more than 72 hours prior to undertaking the journey to India and the negative report from the RT-PCR test has to be uploaded on the Air Suvidha portal before departure.

This will also apply to the passengers transiting through the six countries, irrespective of their originating nations, before arriving at any Indian airport.