A total of 125 passengers on a Milan-Amritsar charter flight were found to be Covid-positive when tested on arrival, government officials said on Thursday.
Officials said there were a total of 179 passengers on the charter flight YU-661 that landed at the Amritsar airport at around 1.30 PM on Wednesday.
Since Italy is one of the "at risk" countries according to the Union Health Ministry, all eligible passengers -- 160 in this case -- were tested for COVID-19 and 125 of them were found to be positive, they mentioned.
Out of total 179 passengers, 19 were children or infant so they were exempt from on-arrival RT-PCR testing, they said.
The charter flight between Milan in Italy and Amritsar in Punjab was operated by Portuguese company EuroAtlantic Airways, they mentioned.
India on Thursday saw the biggest single-day jump of 495 Omicron cases, taking the total number of infections of the new variant of coronavirus to 2,630, according to Union health ministry data.
Of the total cases, Maharashtra has the maximum at 797, followed by Delhi at 465, Rajasthan 236, Kerala 234, Karnataka 226, Gujarat 204 and Tamil Nadu 121.
The country reported 90,928 fresh coronavirus infections, the highest in over 200 days, that pushed its caseload to 3,51,09,286, the data stated.
As many as 91,702 new infections were reported on June 10 last year.
The death toll climbed to 4,82,876 with 325 fatalities, the ministry said.
The number of active cases stands at 2,85,401, comprising 0.81 per cent of the total infections, it said.
An increase of 71,397 cases was recorded in the active caseload in a day.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,43,41,009. The case fatality rate was recorded at 1.38 per cent, the ministry said.
The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 148.67 crore.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.
