Maharashtra govt eyes hospital samples to determine Omicron severity

PUNE: Maharashtra will now focus more on genomic sequencing of Covid-positive samples being sent from hospitals. So far, surveillance was more on samples collected from international travellers, but health officials said an eye on hospital samples will help determine if Omicron has the potential to hospitalise people or cause serious illness.

State surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate said samples of mild, moderate and serious patients, who are hospitalised, are being collected as part of this changed strategy. He said that since sample collections started a few days ago, the Omicron variant has not been seen in hospitalised cases as Delta was still involved in critical cases.

Daily Covid cases rose to 9,645 in the Pune Metropolitan Region on Thursday, up from Wednesday’s 8,342. At the same time, 3,528 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery in the last 24 hours. Mumbai (13,702) saw a nearly 17% drop in daily cases while the state’s count dropped marginally, from 46,723 to 46,406 cases. However, deaths in the state saw a surge for the third consecutive day—36.

Hosp samples will determine variant impact

Another health official said the thrust of the new sequencing strategy is to find out if hospitalised patients with severe Covid have Omicron or not.

"With a slow and steady rise in hospitalisations being noticed across the country, the objective of sending these samples will help calculate the severity index of the fast-spreading variant," the official said.

The head of CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Dr Anurag Agarwal, said he agrees with the state's plan to send samples from those admitted in hospitals.

"It will definitely help confirm the degree to which Omicron is leading to severe disease and deaths," he said.

Dr Agarwal said currently Omicron is dominant in fast-rising outbreaks and even if it is less likely to be severe, health systems have to be shored up. "Genetic sequencing has shown clear community transmission of Omicron in major cities," he said.