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New Delhi: On January 5, India acknowledged the first confirmed death linked to the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus after test samples obtained a man in Udaipur, who died last week, showed the presence of the variant, ministry officials confirmed at a press conference on the same day.
The 73-year-old man, whose test samples were found to contain the omicron variant after genome-sequencing, died in a Udaipur hospital on December 31, they added.
Udaipur chief medical health officer Dr Dinesh Kharadi had said the man had died of post-COVID pneumonia, and that he also had diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hypothyroidism, all comorbidities to the infection.
The man had tested positive for COVID-19 on December 15 and had symptoms like fever, cough and rhinitis, and was subsequently admitted to the hospital.