AHMEDABAD: A 46-year-old Anand resident, the first Omicron variant case from the district, was discharged from Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad on Monday amid showers of petals from the staff. Dr Rakesh Joshi, medical superintendent of the hospital, said that he was the first patient to be admitted for the variant of Covid-19 and the first to be discharged.
Speaking to mediapersons, the recovered patient said he had been to the UK and returned to India via Dubai airport. He was found to have Covid after an RT-PCR test at the airport, after which he was hospitalized. “I just had paracetamol and multivitamins during my isolation. I had no symptoms at all. I want to tell everyone not to be afraid of the variant, but be careful,” said the man, adding that his fully vaccinated status prevented the infection from turning severe. He appealed to people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
In Surat, both confirmed Omicron patients had the common symptom of sore throats. A 42-year-old diamond businessman and a 39-year-old woman fashion designer tested positive at the start of December. The woman had a mild bodyache and a headache as well.
“I had a sore throat one day after I returned from Africa on December 1. Before going to a wedding, I went for a test on December 7 and tested positive. I isolated myself while the health department team came and collected samples for genome sequencing,” said the businessman. The fashion designer said she recovered at home and advised citizens to be careful, while asserting that there is no need to panic.
Vadodara’s first Omicron patient, a 75-year-old NRI from Zambia, said that at first, he did not even realise that he could be infected with the new variant of Covid-19. “We reached Vadodara on December 7. I had a simple headache, body pain and a sore throat. We consulted our family physician and continued medicines for three days. We then tested positive for Covid-19 and were later found to have the new variant,” said the man. He and his wife were both diagnosed as having the Omicron variant. Both were fully vaccinated. They said that all the symptoms were like a flu. They got discharged after nine days of hospitalization, whereas four other contacts got discharged on Saturday.
Dr R S Trivedi, medical superintendent of PDU hospital in Rajkot, said multivitamins, paracetamol and rest are enough for Omicron patients. “We measured all parameters on time but there was not much change,” he said, adding that the patients did not require oxygen. His Tanzanian patient shared his experience, saying that he had a severe headache initially and his heart rate also increased. But eventually his symptoms disappeared. The student was unvaccinated but had two RT-PCR tests return negative before coming to India.
(With inputs from Yagnesh Mehta in Surat, Prashant Rupera in Vadodara and Nimesh Khakharia in Rajkot)
