Pune: Omicron detected in sewage months before first human case

The report suggests that the waste water taken from the STP at Bhairoba Nullah was the first one to have the Omicron signals on November 1, 2021, before it was classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on November 26, 2021.

A wastewater study conducted by the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune discovered that the Omicron variant was present in three out of 10 sewage sites in the city.

The Omicron variant was initially identified as the South African variant after it was discovered in laboratories in Botswana. However, according to reports, the variant was present in multiple sewage sites in Pune as early as nine months prior to its detection among Covid patients in August 2022 in Singapore and parts of India. Scientists have suggested that SARS-CoV2 variants may have been spreading among the population even before they were identified through genome sequencing samples taken from patients.