India's Omicron tally rises to 21 with 17 more testing positive for new COVID variant

MUMBAI: India reported 17 more cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on Sunday - nine persons in Rajasthan capital Jaipur, seven in Maharashtra's Pune district and a fully vaccinated man who arrived in Delhi from Tanzania - taking the tally to 21 in the country.

According to reports, most of those who tested positive either recently arrived from African countries or were in contact with such people. With this, four states and the national capital have now reported cases of the potentially more contagious variant which has sparked a fresh alert across the world.

The nine people who tested positive in Jaipur include four members of a family who returned from South Africa recently.

"Genome sequencing has confirmed that nine persons are infected with the omicron variant," Rajasthan health secretary Vaibhav Galriya said.

The new cases in Maharashtra include a woman who along with her two daughters came from Nigeria, her brother and a man who returned from Finland in the last week of November, officials said.

With this, the total number of confirmed Omicron cases in Maharashtra has gone up to eight now.

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