8 new Omicron cases found in Maharashtra, tally rises to 40

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 18 (ANI): Maharashtra on Friday logged eight new cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, taking the tally of such infections to 40, informed the State Health Department.
Of the eight new Omicron cases, six have been reported from Pune and one each from Mumbai and Kalyan Dombivli.
"As per the report given by National Institute of Virology today, 8 more patients were found to be infected with Omicron in the state. Out of these, 6 patients are from Pune, 1 patient is from Mumbai and 1 patient is from Kalyan Dombivali," it said.
It also said that seven of the eight patients were asymptomatic while one of them exhibited mild symptoms. All the patients were men belonging to the 29 to 45 age group.
The health department said that all eight new people who have tested for Omicron are vaccinated and assured that people who came in close contact with them were being traced.
"Only two patients have been hospitalised after testing positive while the rest have been confined to home isolation and out of these eight patients, two are in hospital and six are at home isolation," it said.
Four patients from Pune have a history of travel to Dubai, two are their contacts. One patient from Mumbai had travelled to the USA and the other patient from KDMC had travelled to Nigeria.
However, 25 of these patients have been discharged after they tested negative for the virus.
As per the health department, till date, a total of 40 patients infected with Omicron virus have been reported in the state including 14 in Mumbai, 10 in Pimpri Chinchwad, six in Pune rural, two in Pune Municipal Corporation, two each in Kalyan Dombivali and Osmanabad and one each in Latur, Buldhana, Nagpur and Vasai Virar.
Meanwhile, the state also reported 902 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.
As many as 12 deaths were reported in the state on Friday, taking the state's death toll to 141,329. (ANI)