India's Omicron count rises to 151

New Delhi/Mumbai: India's Omicron COVID count rose to 151 on Sunday after Maharashtra reported six more cases while a 45-year-old NRI and a teenage boy, who recently arrived in Gujarat from the United Kingdom, also tested positive for the variant.

According to central and state officials, omicron cases have been detected in 11 states and union territories -- Maharashtra (54), Delhi (22), Rajasthan (17) and Karnataka (14), Telangana (20), Gujarat (9), Kerala (11), Andhra Pradesh (1), Chandigarh (1), Tamil Nadu (1) and West Bengal (1).

Six persons tested positive for the Omicron variant of Coronavirus in Maharashtra on Sunday, raising the state's tally of such cases to 54, the health department said.

While two of these patients had a history of travel to Tanzania, two others had returned from England and one from the Middle East. All five of them are fully vaccinated.

Another patient is a five-year-old boy from Junnar in Pune who is a close contact of Dubai travellers from Junnar, it said in a statement.

In Gujarat, a non-resident Indian tested positive for the Coronavirus infection in the RT-PCR test carried out at the Ahmedabad international airport soon after he arrived from the UK on December 15, a health department official said on Sunday.

"The man's sample was later found infected with the Omicron variant," Anand district health officer Dr M T Chhari said. His co-passengers and other contacts have tested negative for the viral infection, the official said.

A 15-year-old boy from Gandhinagar was also detected with the Omicron variant after returning from the UK, Gandhinagar Municipal Commissioner Dhaval Patel said.

With 7,081 people testing positive for Coronavirus infection in a day, India's total tally of cases rose to 3,47,40,275 on Sun-day, while the active cases declined to 83,913, the lowest in 570 days.

The death toll has climbed to 4,77,422, with 264 daily fatalities.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been recorded below 15,000 for the last 52 days now.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.58 per cent. It has been less than 2 per cent for last 76 days

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,41,78,940, while the case fatality rate has been recorded at 1.37 per cent.

The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 137.46 crore.