nagpur in a 15fold hike the districts covid caseload jumped to 46 on monday from just three at the start of this month five new cases from 37 tests were recorded in the day with another spike expected in the next few days officials saidworryingly 10 new patients are fully vaccinated but had to be admitted as they were symptomatic after the third wave in january last year few new patients have required hospitalizationthe districts covid toll remains at 10358 since october last year a 3monthold severely ill girl was the last covid19 victim in the city on october 24 2022 the district had recorded just 10 cases in january and seven in february this month the tally has reached 76 with no deathsamong the fresh patients two cases are of the new xbb116 recombinant variant two women aged 75 and 84 from jaripatka have tested positive for the omicron subvariant which is behind the latest surge in different states the women had tested covid positive on march 22 and 23 the 75yearold was discharged from a private hospital the omicron sublineage has been designated as a variant of concern voc by insacog india sarscov2 genomics consortium as it is highly contagiousin akola 15 patients are under treatment of them five are hospitalized in amravati six patients are admitted out of the total 26 active cases there updates from other districts were not availablethe two voc cases were reported by national institute of virology niv pune which came as a surprise for local health authoritieslast year the public health department had ordered all labs in vidarbha to send their samples to neeri which is a designated insacog lab for entire northeastern region of maharashtra as per official data 87 of the 329 rtpcr samples from vidarbha were sent for genome sequencing since january however the designated lab neeri received just two over the last three monthsbesides neeri aiims nagpur has a genome sequencing facility but it is a noninsacog lab reporting by insacog labs are considered valid for the purpose of framing health policies and alerting the government on new variantsofficials said though the voc is accelerating it causes only mild disease like cough cold and fever