Two cases of Omicron detected in UK, one suspected infection in Germany
Shafaq News/ Two cases of the new Omicron were confirmed in the UK on Saturday while Germany reported a suspected infection.
Britain's Health Secretary said on Twitter that the two Omicron cases in the UK "are linked and there is a connection with travel to southern Africa."
The two infected people are self-isolating with their households and contact tracing is being carried out.
"As a precaution we are rolling out additional targeted testing in the affected areas - Nottingham and Chelmsford - and sequencing all positive cases," Sajid Javid added.
He also announced that Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola have been added to the country's travel red list, alongside South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe which were added earlier this week.
It means travellers must book a quarantine in a hotel package.
Britain's announcement came hours after Kai Klose, social affairs minister for Germany's western lander of Hesse, said that a suspected case of the new variant had been detected in the country in a person recently from South Africa.
"The Omicron variant is, in all likelihood, already present in Germany," Klose wrote on Twitter.
"Several mutations typical of Omicron were found last night in a traveller returning from South Africa. There is therefore a high level of suspicion and the person has been isolated. The complete sequencing is still pending at the current time," he added
If confirmed, this would make it the second case of Omicron detected in the European Union after Belgian authorities announced on Friday that a traveller returning from Egypt had tested positive for the variant.
Dutch authorities are meanwhile sequencing samples from 61 passengers from two planes returning from South Africa on Friday and who tested positive for COVID-19.
EU member states on Friday closed their borders to travellers from seven Southern African countries — Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe — because of the variant.
The decision came hours before the World Health Organisation (WHO) gave the variant, first known as B.1.1.529, its name and labelled it a "variant of concern".
The United Nations' health agency stressed that "preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of infection" with experts also worried that the variant's "large number of mutations" make it more immune to current treatment, including vaccines.
Other countries to have imposed travel restrictions with southern African countries include Canada, and the US.
Source: Euronews
