India Reports 3rd Omicron Case; Delhi Registers 51 New Covid-19 Infections

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genome sequencing, after he tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, it said. Gujarat’s Commissioner of Health Jai Prakash Shivhare confirmed that the man was found infected with the Omicron strain. Earlier, two persons had tested positive for this variant in Karnataka. In the last 24 hours, India recorded 8,603 cases, as per the health ministry’s data.

Authorities across the world are rushing to stem the heavily mutated Covid-19 strain’s spread amid warnings that it could damage the global economic recovery. As concerns grow, the parliamentary committee has recommended that the efficacy of Covid vaccines must be evaluated and concerns with regards to the new strain developing immunoescape mechanism critically addressed. Meanwhile, Canada has confirmed 15 cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus and the public health officials told Reuters, severe illness trends across the country could start to rise once again.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on health, which presented its report on Friday, also recommended that the government should conduct more research and examine the need of administering booster doses of vaccines to contain the new strain of the virus. In its report, the committee said it apprehends that a rise in mutations in the virus may lead to reporting of more virulent and transmissible strain of the Covid virus in the country and strongly recommended the Union Health Ministry to adopt a zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy and closely track Covid cases across the country.

The World Health Organisation said that the Omicron variant has been detected in 38 countries but no deaths have yet been reported so far. The UN body has warned that it could take weeks to determine how infectious the variant is, whether it causes more severe illness, and how effective treatments and vaccines are against it.

Amid growing concerns, the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 could slow the global economic recovery, just as the Delta strain did, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said Friday. “A new variant that may spread very rapidly can dent confidence and in that sense, we are likely to see some downgrades of our October projections for global growth,” she said at a Reuters event.

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