A fully vaccinated 65-year-old woman in Rajasthan's Bikaner district has tested positive for the Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2, making it the first case of the mutant virus infection in the State. The woman, who had received both the doses of Covaxin, has since recovered from the disease.
Her sample was sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, on May 30 for genome sequencing and her diagnostic test report was received in Bikaner on Friday. Bikaner Chief Medical & Health Officer O.P. Chahar said it was the first confirmed case of Delta Plus in Rajasthan, though the woman was asymptomatic and had recovered completely.
The Sardar Patel Medical College in Bikaner had sent 10 random samples of COVID-19 patients, including that of the sexagenarian woman, to the NIV for genome sequencing. The woman and her three family members, who were earlier diagnosed with COVID-19, had recovered at home without any institutional treatment.
A micro-containment zone has been created around the woman's residence and intense contact tracing started. Dr. Chahar said though the latest samples collected from the family of the woman had tested negative for COVID-19, the Health Department's teams were conducting door-to-door surveys in the area as a precautionary step.
“Though the Delta Plus variant case is about a month old, we are taking all preventive measures to rule out the presence of any chain of the virus infection,” Dr. Chahar said. The Health Department's teams have found 41 persons with influenza-like illness in the area and all of those who had tested positive in the last one month will be tested again.
Medical & Health Minister Raghu Sharma said the State government was vigilant about the Delta Plus variant and had launched action to thwart its spread. He said the samples were being tested at the newly established genome sequencing facility in Sawai Man Singh Medical College in Jaipur to know more about the variant in order to determine the treatment protocol.