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Quarantine, genome sequencing in Mumbai for people arriving from SA

Passengers arriving at Mumbai airport from South Africa will be quarantined after a potentially more contagious new coronavirus variant called Omicron was identified in the country earlier this week, city’s mayor Kishori Pednekar announced on November 27.

Genome sequencing of passengers will also be done if they are found COVID-19 positive, news agency ANI said quoting the mayor.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has called a meeting of senior officials at 5:30 pm on November 27 on the new COVID-19 variant, reported the news agency.

The new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, first detected in South Africa this week, was designated as a Variant of Concern by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on November 26, which named it Omicron. A variant of concern is the WHO’s top category of worrying COVID-19 variants. It was first reported to the WHO from South Africa on November 24, and has also been identified in Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel. A number of countries around the world have now decided to ban or restrict travel to and from these six southern Africa nations.

Earlier on the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired an important meeting amid rising global concerns over the new coronavirus strain. The meeting is being attended by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, P K Mishra, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and NITI Aayog member (health) Dr V K Paul among others.

The Union Health Ministry on November 26 said the countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel have been put in the “at-risk” category. Passengers coming from ‘at-risk’ countries have to give their samples at the airport for RT-PCR testing, according to the Union Health Ministry’s rules.

On November 25, the Centre asked all states and union territories to conduct rigorous screening and testing of all international travellers coming from or transiting through South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana, where the B.1.1.529 variant has been detected. Moneycontrol

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