Amid Omicron concern, 9 members of family test positive for COVID-19 in Jaipur, after 4 returned from South Africa

Nine members of a family here tested positive for COVID-19, days after four of them returned from South Africa, putting the Health Department on alert amid concerns over the "Omicron" variant of the infection.

Those who returned from South Africa have been admitted to the hospital of the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS) and swab samples of all nine people have been sent for genome sequencing to Jaipur's Sawai Man Singh Hospital, a health official said.

Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr Narottam Sharma said 14 samples were taken for testing from the family, nine of which tested positive for the infection.

In contact tracing, it was found that four of them had returned from South Africa, he said.

The official said as per guidelines, those who returned from South Africa have been isolated at the RUHS hospital while the other five have been home quarantined.

Currently, Rajasthan has 213 active cases.

The maximum 114 active cases are from Jaipur alone