Amid Omicron fears, 12 out of 318 foreign returnees 'untraceable' in Maharashtra

Thane: Amid growing concerns over the new COVID variant Omicron, at least 12 people out of 318 people who returned from foreign countries to Maharashtra recently have now become untraceable.

All of them had recently arrived in the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation area of Maharashtra`s Thane. "318 people returned from the foreign countries recently in Thane`s Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation area. 12 people are untraceable. A search operation is on to locate them," said KDMC chief Vijay Sooryavanshi.

"Some of the passengers who returned cannot be reached as their mobile phones are switched off whereas the addresses that the others gave are locked up," he said.

The KDMC chief informed that a team of the Health Department would visit again today to the given addresses. The new variant of COVID-19 was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 25. 

As per the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on November 9 this year. On November 26, the WHO named the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, which has been detected in South Africa, as `Omicron`. 

The WHO has classified Omicron as a `variant of concern`. 

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