Four new cases of Covid-19 subvariant B.A. 4 and and three cases of B.A. 5 of Omicron for the very first time were reported in Maharashtra, Pune. All the patients had had only mild symptoms and were treated at home, an official of the state health department said.

The subvariants of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5 were detected in the month of April in other parts of the world like South Africa but no cases were found in the country, until now. Out of these 7 cases, 4 patients are above 50 years of age, two are in between 20-40 age group while one patient is a nine-year-old child, the health official said. Even after taking both the dosages of Covid-19 vaccine, all the six adults were found positive, out of them, one was also jabbed with the booster shot. All of them had mild symptoms of Covid-19 and were treated in home isolation. Although two of these patients had traveled to South Africa and Belgium whereas three of them traveled to Kerala and Karnataka and the other patients did not had any recent travel history.

Although there is no severity detected in the infection of these sub-lineages of Omicron but it is highly transmissible because of which COVID-19 cases are increasing in the last few of weeks. However patients are not being hospitalised in large numbers. 529 new cases of Covid-19 were reported the state. Although no virus-related death were found in the last 24 hours, the state health department said.