Bhubaneswar: The Omicron cases in the State have made a long jump with the detection of another 145 fresh cases on Wednesday.
The Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar has informed the Health and Family Welfare Department about the detection of 145 cases of the highly contagious variant of the SARS-CoV-2. With this, the total number of cases in the State increased to 347.
The ILS conducted genome sequencing of 249 samples from which Omicron strain was found in 145 samples. All the samples were sent for genome sequencing between January 9 and 16, the ILS informed.
Meanwhile, the State has received 30,000 OmiSure testing kits, which will be used on a trial run basis in four towns of the State to detect Omicron variants.
Odisha is the first State in India to place an order for the OmiSure kits. It had placed orders to procure 5 lakh kits, of which 30,000 kits have arrived, the official said.
The OmiSure kits have arrived. There are many variants of Covid-19. Omicron is one among them, which is highly transmissible. The OmiSure kits will be sent to places having high case load for an internal study, said State director of health services, Bijay Mohapatra.
Preliminary, the kits will be sent to Bhubaneswar, Berhampur, Cuttack and Rourkela where a high number of Covid cases are being detected in comparison to other places of the State, he informed.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had recently approved the OmiSure kit developed by the Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd. (Tata MD) for RT-PCR detection of the Omicron variant.
At present, the State government is sending samples to Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar for genome sequencing to detect the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV2.