The State recorded nine more cases of Omicron infection on Wednesday. While six cases were confirmed in Ernakulam, three were reported in Thiruvananthapuram.
The new cases in Ernakulam include two international travellers who had arrived from the U.K., two from Tanzania and one each from Ghana and Ireland. All the six had been admitted to hospital after they tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival at the Cochin international airport on December 18 and 19.
Of the three fresh cases in Thiruvananthapuram, a couple had arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport from Nigeria on December 10. They were found to be COVID-19 positive in the second round of testing on December 17. Their two children are primary contacts.
The third case, a U.K. returnee, had tested positive at the airport on December 18 and was subsequently hospitalised. The samples were sent to the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology where they tested positive for Omicron.
With this, the total number of persons in Kerala infected with the Omicron variant of the corona virus has touched 24.