Omicron has been designated as a variant of concern by the World Health Organisation. Scientists fear it is highly transmissible and could be more resistant to vaccines.
A minister in the German state of Hesse said that several “omicron-typical mutations” had been found in a traveller returning from South Africa to Frankfurt airport, one of Europe’s busiest. He added that a full sequencing of the variant was being carried out and that the person was isolating, and he urged anyone who had travelled from South Africa in the last few weeks to limit contacts and get tested.
In the Czech Republic, health authorities are examining a suspected case of omicron in a person who has returned from Namibia.
Elsewhere, the UK detected two cases of omicron, which are linked and have been traced to southern Africa, while Dutch health officials were trying to establish whether the omicron variant was behind 61 cases of Covid found in people who arrived in the Netherlands on flights from South Africa on Friday.
This story is from the November 28, 2021 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the November 28, 2021 edition of The Independent.
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