Variant 'different from Delta' found in SA traveller

Bengaluru: One of the two passengers from South Africa who tested Covid positive last week has a variant "different from Delta", Karnataka Health minister Dr K Sudhakar said on Monday. His statement contradicted the claims of state health officials who said on Friday that both travellers had the Delta variant. The samples from the two travellers were sent for genome sequencing last week.

"One of the samples is found to be Delta while the other is different. We have sought ICMR's assistance in ascertaining the variant," the Health minister said. "For now, all I can say is that one sample is different from the Delta variant." The state is now awaiting confirmation from ICMR on the variant.

The report from Karnataka comes amid growing alarm around a new Covid variant — identified as Omicron — that has been designated a "variant of concern" by the WHO. However, the UN health agency has said it "is not yet clear whether Omicron is more transmissible (e.g., more easily spread from person to person)" or whether infection with the variant "causes more severe disease compared to infections with other variants, including Delta".