Spain, Sweden, the latest EU countries have reported omicron COVID-19 cases
On Monday, Spain and Sweden became the latest EU member states to announce that they have discovered their first cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Spain has discovered its first case of the new variant in a 51-year-old man who arrived from South Africa on Sunday after a break in Amsterdam, said Madrid’s regional health authority, as the country’s overall infection rate rose.
The microbiology unit at Madrid Hospital Gregorio Maranon, who sequenced and confirmed the new variant, added in a separate tweet that the patient was in decent condition with mild symptoms.
Spain’s rolling 14-day COVID-19 infection rate rose to 199 per 100,000 on Monday from 172 on Friday, with almost 23,000 cases detected over the weekend, according to data from the Ministry of Health, but the proportion is still lower than in countries such as Austria, Germany or the Netherlands. .
Spain has registered 5,153,923 infections and 88,008 deaths since the pandemic began. The death toll rose by 53 from last Friday.
Sweden’s first case was discovered in a test taken just over a week ago from a person who traveled from South Africa, the Public Health Agency states in a statement.
– It was expected that we would find the variant also in Sweden, as it has been discovered in several other countries in Europe. The information we have about the variant means that we should take it very seriously until we know more about it, says the authority.
It provided no further information on the condition of the infected person.
The latest outbreak, first reported in southern Africa, has caused a global outcry of border restrictions and flight closures over the weekend amid fears of a return to uncontrolled infection.
Cases have so far been confirmed in countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Botswana, Israel and Canada.
The highly mutated omicron variant is likely to spread internationally and poses a very high risk of infections that could have “serious consequences” in some places, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
The new variant forced many countries to close their borders, reviving fears of economic recovery from the two-year pandemic.
More than 261 million people in over 210 countries have been reported to be infected with the coronavirus since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019 and 5,456,515 have died, according to a Reuters report.