New Variant Fears Spark Search For Botswana Woman In Madhya Pradesh

Amid concerns over the potentially more contagious new 'Omicron' variant of coronavirus detected in some countries, Madhya Pradesh health authorities have launched a search for a woman from Botswana who, as per government records, visited Jabalpur on November 18, an official said today.

"An official from the Botswana Embassy told us over phone that she is in isolation at a military organisation in Jabalpur. We have asked him to share her mobile phone number and her local contact," Jabalpur Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr Ratnesh Kurariya said.

Efforts were on to trace the woman, named Khuno Oremeet Selyn as per the record, according to the Union government's health surveillance guidelines (to check the spread of COVID-19), he said.

"The woman came to Jabalpur from Delhi, as per the record shared with us by the central government," he said.

The location of her mobile number mentioned in Jabalpur's Dumna airport record was traced to Delhi. The police investigation suggests that the phone has not been moved out of Delhi since last one month, the official said.

"The CCTV footage of the Jabalpur airport is being examined to find the woman," he said.

Information was also being gathered from hotels in Jabalpur and neighbouring districts, he said.

Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa, where Omicron has been detected.

The WHO last week described Omicron as a "variant of concern" and its detection has caused fear around the globe that it could resist vaccines and prolong the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the surveillance process, the Union government was regularly providing the list of visitors coming to Jabalpur from abroad, Dr Kurariya said.

Last month, 164 people from the United Kingdom visited Jabalpur and they were contacted and asked about their health, he said.

Jabalpur reported the first coronavirus case in the state on March 30 last year, when three people who returned from Dubai and Germany tested positive for the infection.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)