Kerala on Wednesday reported four new cases of Omicron COVID-19 variant, taking the overall tally of the state to five, informed State Health Minister Veena George.
"Among the total four cases reported, two are the people who have come into contact with the first positive case which was reported in Kochi. The third person is from Ernakulam who had come from Congo and the fourth case has been reported from Thiruvananthapuram, who had returned from the UK," said Kerala Health Minister.
She further said that all the patients are stable.
Meanwhile, Kerala recorded 4,006 new cases of COVID-19 during the last 24 hours, said the state government on Wednesday.
During the last 24 hours, a total of 3,898 people recovered from the infection.
In the state, 125 people lost their lives to the deadly virus and 157 deaths were added to the tally as per the new guidelines of the Centre according to which deaths occurred before June 2021 which were not initially added to the COVID-19 death list due to some reasons are being included now.
With this, the death tally in the state has reached up to 43,626.
There are currently 35,234 active cases of COVID-19 in the state.
A new variant of COVID-19 was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from South Africa on November 25. As per the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on November 9 this year.
On November 26, the WHO named the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, which has been detected in South Africa, as 'Omicron'. The WHO has classified Omicron as a 'variant of concern'.
States including Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Telangana and Gujarat have reported cases of the new COVID-19 variant.
( With inputs from ANI )
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