Omicron alarm: India has 200 cases of new strain, Maharashtra & Delhi top contributors

As many as 200 cases of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus were so far recorded in India, the ministry of health and family affairs said on Tuesday. The latest bulletin said 77 of these 200 patients have recovered from the viral disease.

Of the total cases, Maharashtra and Delhi have the highest number of infections from the highly contagious strain at 54 each, followed by Telangana (20), Karnataka (19), Rajasthan (18), Kerala (15) and Gujarat (14).

So far, 12 states in the country have reported cases of the Omicron strain that was first detected in South Africa in November and was soon after, declared a variant of concern by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

So far, most of the Omicron patients in the country have been asymptomatic or showed mild symptoms, health officials said. Buffer stocks of medicine and oxygen have been arranged to tackle any outbreak and 48,000 ventilators have been distributed to the states, the minister said. As much as 88% of the country's eligible population has received the first dose of a vaccine and 58% have been fully inoculated.