Mizoram is still free of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 as two foreign returnees, whose samples have been sent for genome sequencing, have tested negative for the highly transmissible new variant, a health department official said on Tuesday.
State nodal officer of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and official spokesperson on COVID-19 Dr. Pachuau Lalmalsawma said that the two returnees have come from Australia and Singapore recently.
They were diagnosed with COVID-19 on their arrival at Lengpui airport in Aizawl and their samples were sent for genome sequencing to the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics in West Bengal’s Kalyani on December 22.
He said the two samples came out negative for Omicron on Monday.
Pachuau also urged the people to strictly adhere to Covid-19 Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) especially during the festive season as new variants of COVID-19 like Delta and other variants are still prevalent in the state.
Also read: Omicron in Northeast: First case of the region detected in Manipur
At least four new variants of COVID-19 such as Delta, Delta Plus, Alpha and Beta have been detected in the state so far.
Meanwhile, the northeastern state on Tuesday reported 184 new COVID-19 cases, taking the state’s tally to 1,40,748, according to the health department.
The death toll remains at 539 as no new fatality was reported in the last 24 hours, it said.
Also read: Omicron concern: Tripura to start whole genome sequencing from February 2022
Khawzawl district reported the highest number of fresh cases at 44, followed by Aizawl district (41) and Mamit district (31), it said.
The single-day positivity rate dipped to 10.27% from 10.45% on the previous day, it said.
The number of active cases now stands at 1,435 while 148 people have recovered from the infection on Monday, taking the total recoveries to 1,38,744.
The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients is 98.57% and the death rate is 0.38%.
The state has so far tested more than 14.99 lakh samples for COVID-19 and 1,792 samples were tested on Monday.
Over 7.29 lakh people have been inoculated and 5.87 lakh of them have received full dose till date, state immunisation officer Dr. Lalzawmi said.