The highly spreading Omicron variant of Covid-19 is in the community transmission stage in India and has become dominant in several metros where fresh cases have been spiking exponentially, INSACOG said in its latest bulletin.
The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), jointly initiated by the Union Health Ministry of Health, and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), found that the newly detected variant is prevalent in Delhi and Mumbai. Domestic internal penetration is estimated to be higher than that spread by foreign travellers.
While most Omicron cases so far have been asymptomatic or mild, hospitalisations and ICU cases have increased in the current wave and the threat level remains unchanged, INSACOG said.
“Omicron is now in community transmission in India and has become dominant in multiple metros, where fresh cases have been rising exponentially. BA.2 lineage is in a substantial fraction in India and S gene dropout based screening is thus likely to give high false negatives,” it added.
As per reports, a total of 1,50,710 samples have been sequenced and 1, 27,697 samples have been analysed so far by INSACOG.