Maharashtra’s first Omicron patient tests negative, returns home on his birthday

“He was extremely scared when he was detected with Omicron. Now, as he has recovered, he wants to come forward and share his story about being the ‘zero’ patient of Omicron,” the officer said.

“He was one of the few Omicron patients to test negative for the virus and, perhaps, the first patient to get discharged in India. We hope this will give hope to the public who are panicking about the virus,” said the officer.

The Dombivli resident was diagnosed with Covid-19 on November 24 while traveling to Mumbai from Cape Town via Dubai and Delhi. He had tested negative in an RT-PCR test conducted 72 hours prior to his inter-connected flights.

“He had conducted an RT-PCR test in Cape Town before travelling to Mumbai via Delhi. But the report was negative for SARS-CoV-2. Upon landing in Delhi airport, when another RT-PCR test was conducted, he was found positive. There is a possibility that his previous report was a false negative,” Dr Pratibha Panpatil, Chief Medical Officer of KDMC, earlier said. Despite running a test on him at Delhi airport, the authorities allowed him to fly to Mumbai without waiting for the report. When he landed in Mumbai, he received his digital test report through an email which confirmed that he was carrying the pathogen of Covid-19. But while getting out of the airport, he showed his previous negative test report to the screening officers. After returning to Dombivli, he decided to get home-quarantined as his symptoms were mild.

Later, through field surveillance, KDMC contacted him and immediately quarantined him in a Covid Care Center. On December 4, he was diagnosed with Omicron when his genome sequencing report sent to Kasturba Gandhi Hospital tested positive for the strain.

The department said 12 of the patient’s high-risk contacts and 23 low-risk contacts were traced and found negative for Covid-19. Additionally, 25 of his co-passengers on the Delhi-Mumbai flight also tested negative.

Talking to The Indian Express, state health minister Rajesh Tope said that people are apprehensive about Omicron after witnessing the first and second wave. But so far, the situation is under control.
“Data accessed from across the globe shows that the variant doesn’t cause severity in infection which lessens the demand for oxygen requirement and hospitalisation. People need to get vaccinated and follow Covid-19 protocols,” he said.

So far, ten Omicron patients have been identified in the state. The state has sent over 60 samples for genome sequencing of suspected Omicron cases.