By Shankar Raj*
Bengaluru: A third case of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus was detected in Karnataka Sunday.
State Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar tweeted that the patient is a 34-year-old man who returned from South Africa and is being isolated at a government hospital. Five primary contacts and 15 secondary contacts have been traced and their samples too have been subjected to testing, he added.
Health department officials confirmed that the patient is from Bengaluru city and will be treated at Bowring Hospital in the city.
Earlier Karnataka had detected two instances of Omicron in the state. In one case, a South African national had left the country after landing in Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru under suspicious circumstances.
Another patient, a government hospital doctor in the state, has been stable without developing any complications.
Meanwhile, the state government has issued a special discharge policy for patients infected with the Omicron variant. According to the new directive, patients can be discharged after 10 days of symptoms’ onset if no fever and no symptoms are found in the last three days before discharge and oxygen saturation is maintained above 95% for the last four consecutive days without oxygen support. However, patients need to test negative twice on RT-PCR tests taken within a gap of a day. If a patient tests positive, then they can be subjected to a repeat test after 48 hours.
Post discharge, patients will be advised another seven days of home quarantine and they should self-monitor their health. For patients for whom home quarantine is not feasible, they should go for institutional quarantine.
*Shankar Raj is former Editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
