India on Monday expressed solidarity and offered to aid countries affected by the Omicron variant of COVID-19. According to a statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs, it stands ready to supply made-in India vaccines, essential life-saving drugs, test kits, gloves, PPE kits and medical equipment such as ventilators to these countries. With more than a dozen countries having reported suspected of confirmed cases of the new variant, the Centre and state governments have announced several precautionary measures. While India does not have any cases of the rather mutated new variant, a few Individuals had tested positive recently after returning from South Africa. The genome sequencing results for some of these patients are still awaited. On Monday, Karnataka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar had said that the sample of one person (out of two) who arrived in Bengaluru recently from South Africa is ‘different from the Delta variant’. The lawmaker told the media that the sample had been sent to the ICMR and further details were awaited.
