COVID-19 Omicron Cases: 7 more people test positive in Maharashtra

This has taken India's total tally of Omicron cases to 12 as of the evening of December 5. The total cases in Maharashtra now stand at 8.

Moneycontrol News

December 05, 2021 / 19:32 IST

Representative Image. (Image: AFP)

Seven more people have tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID19 in Maharashtra, informed the State Health Department on December 5. A total of 8 cases of the variant have now been reported in Maharashtra. All seven cases detected on December 5 are from Pune.

Six out of the seven cases are related, wherein a woman along with her two daughters was travelling from Nigeria to meet her brother in the adjoining Pimpri Chinchwad area, an official informed news agency PTI. Now along with the woman and her daughters, her brother and his two daughters have also tested positive for the variant.

The seventh case is of a man from Pune who returned from Finland in the last week of last month, the official added.

Also Read: Travel in the time of Omicron: Old land routes for resolute tourists

The first case of the variant in Maharashtra was reported on December 4, where a man from the Kalyan-Dombavili region had tested positive after travelling from South Africa to Mumbai, via Dubai and Delhi.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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