India: Noida in Uttar Pradesh state reports its first Covid case in months
Covid
In India's National Capital Region (NCR) after several months, a case of the dreaded coronavirus has come to light. The COVID-19 case, as per a PTI report citing officials, is in Noida, where a 54-year-old man has tested positive.
This comes amid a significant uptick in COVID-19 cases attributed to the recently discovered Omicron sub-variant JN.1.
Noida's first case
The patient is a 54-year-old man who is a resident of Noida, Gautam Buddha Nagar. While his identity is yet to be revealed, as per reports, he works at a multinational company in Gurugram.
Gautam Buddha Nagar Chief Medical Officer Dr Sunil Sharma on Thursday said that "his test sample has been sent to Delhi for genome sequencing. The result is awaited".
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As per District Surveillance Officer and public healthcare expert Dr Amit Kumar, earlier this month, the patient travelled to Nepal. He also revealed that after his return from Nepal, the man also went to work at his Gurugram office.
"The patient is asymptomatic and went for the COVID-19 test on his own," said Kumar. He added that, as of now, this is the only confirmed case in Gautam Buddha Nagar.
Noida on alert
In Noida, as per CMO Sharma, the testing for the coronavirus has come down this year. However, he noted that people can still get themselves tested for Covid at primary community health centres and the district hospital.
After the case was reported, concerns over the infection spreading once again have been raised. The healthcare department has urged residents to follow Covid-appropriate measures: Wash their hands with soap for at least a minute, practice social distancing, use alcohol-based sanitisers, wear a face mask when outdoors, among other measures.
JN.1 variant
Recently, India has seen an uptick of cases from the JN.1 variant, with 2,669 active cases, as of Wednesday (Dec 21). The Omicron subvariant has been categorised as a "variant of interest" by the World Health Organization, and as of now isn't deemed to hold a particular risk. However, former WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan has cautioned against underestimating COVID-19 as a common cold.
(With inputs from agencies)
