Gondia: Health authorities in Maharashtra’s Gondia district have started tracing close contacts of two women who were found infected with the Delta plus variant of coronavirus, considered highly infectious, an official said on Thursday.
As many as 105 swab samples collected from the district were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune in the last week of June for genome sequencing and two of them tested positive for the Delta plus variant, according to Dr Nitin Kapse, District Health Officer.
Their report was received on Wednesday, he said.
Though both the patients, women aged 19 and 45, have recovered from the infection, the district health department has started a survey at their native places, looking for their travel history and close contacts, he said.
The women hail from Sadak Arjuni and Salekasa tehsils of the district located in the Vidarbha region in eastern Maharashtra.
“The health department is looking for their close contacts so that they can undergo RT-PCR tests and also looking at their travel history,” he said.
Kapse said there is no need for people to panic but they should strictly adhere to COVID-19 protocols to stay away from the infection and curb its spread.
