A 29-year-old man who had returned from New York tested positive for Omicron variant here on Friday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a release.

Notably, the man, who has no symptoms, had taken three doses of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, it added.

He tested positive for COVID-19 in a test conducted at the airport on November 9, after which his samples were sent for genome sequencing.

Two of his high-risk contacts tested negative for coronavirus, the BMC said.

"The patient has been admitted to a hospital as a precautionary measure and he has no symptoms," the civic body said in a release.

This raised the tally of Omicron patients found in the country's financial capital to 15, including five who are from outside Mumbai.

But 13 of these patients have already been discharged from hospitals.

In fact, none of the 15 Omicron patients found in the city so far has reported severe symptoms, the BMC said.

The tally of Omicron patients in Maharashtra has reached 40.

Notably, the health officials on Friday underlined the need for public health measures and personal precautions to contain any fresh Covid-19 surges amid India’s rising omicron counts.

The officials called on district health authorities to impose restrictions on public movements if local test positivity rates rose beyond 5 per cent and urged the public to avoid non-essential travel and mass gatherings and observe festivities only in “low intensity”.

“We’re in an unexpected scenario…. A new phase of the pandemic is being experienced in Europe,” said Vinod Paul, member (health) in Niti Aayog, the Centre's apex think tank.

“This kind of spread should not happen. Conversely, we need to be prepared to effectively face such scenarios too… profound caution is required,” Paul had said, underlining the need for intensive testing, contact tracing and efforts to contain clusters wherever they emerge.

Samiran Panda, chief of non-communicable diseases at the ICMR, said all that could be said from the small number of omicron cases was that some had a history of travel and some had a history of contact with confirmed cases, while and no plausible exposure could be identified for some.