India on Wednesday confirmed its first death linked to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus after the samples of a man in Rajasthan's Udaipur, who died last week, showed the presence of the variant, officials in the Union health ministry said.
The death reported from Udaipur was "technically" related to Omicron, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said at a press conference here on Wednesday.
"That person had already died by the time the Omicron-positive results came. He was an elderly person and had diabetes and other comorbid conditions and was being treated as per protocol for his comorbid conditions as well as for the infection.
"Our guidelines state that if a coronavirus patient dies, it is considered as a COVID-19 fatality. Similarly, if a person is found to be Omicron positive, even if it is detected late, we will consider that as an Omicron-positive case," he said.
The 73-year-old man, who was found infected with Omicron in genome sequencing and who had tested negative for the infection twice, died in a Udaipur hospital on December 31, Rajasthan government officials had said.
He died due to post-Covid pneumonia coupled with comorbidities -- diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hypothyroidism -- Udaipur Chief Medical Health Officer (CMHO) Dr Dinesh Kharadi had said.
The man was found Covid positive on December 15 and had symptoms like fever, cough and rhinitis, and therefore, was admitted to the hospital.
His samples were sent for genome sequencing and the results were received on December 25, in which he was found infected with the Omicron variant of the virus.
The man had tested negative for COVID-19 twice on December 21 and 25.