Bhubaneswar: Nearly 98 per cent of COVID-19 samples were found to be Omicron cases during genome sequencing, according to the latest data released by the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) here on Thursday, making it the dominant strain in Odisha replacing Delta.
The samples were drawn from different districts of the state. Omicron strain was found in 235 of 241 COVID-19 positive samples collected between January 27 and February 4 from 18 districts including Khurda, Sundargarh and Cuttack, which reported over 500 daily cases for nearly a month.
Other districts from which samples were drawn are Puri, Jajpur, Nabarangpur, Jagatsinghpur, Ganjam, Nayagarh, Kendrapara, Angul, Gajapati and Mayurbhanj.
BA.2 strain was found in 217 samples, BA.1.1 in 12 samples and BA.1 in six samples. Rest six were Delta.
In Ganjam, which sent 47 samples, 46 had the BA.2 strain, the maximum for a district compared to number of samples tested. One sample was of BA.1.1 strain.
Delta strain was found in four samples from Khurda, and one each from Puri and Nayagarh.
The BA.2 strain was found in 44 samples out of 49 from Khurda, 27 (30) from Cuttack, 15 (16) from Nabarangpur, 17 (17) from Mayurbhanj, 12 (12) from Kendrapara, 11 (16) from Gajapati and 13 (14) from Angul.
Four samples in Gajapati were of BA.1.1.
On January 10, just 25.5 per cent of samples sequenced in the state were detected with the Omicron strain, which means it has increased by four times in a month.
