The omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus, was detected in the Netherlands before two flights arrived from South Africa last Friday (26) with passengers later diagnosed with the strain, reported the National Institute of Public Health on Tuesday (30).
Until then, it was believed that the variant had arrived in Amsterdam through passengers from the African country, where the omicron was sequenced for the first time. The new information, however, shows that the strain was already present in two test samples collected in the Netherlands on November 19 and 23 — therefore, before passengers disembarked from Africa.
Also according to local authorities, at least 14 people who landed on Friday flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town and were diagnosed with Covid carried the new, potentially more transmissible strain. All are quarantined.
The Netherlands is also trying to contact and test more than 5,000 other passengers who have recently traveled from southern African nations such as South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The country adopted, on Sunday (28), stricter measures to curb the pandemic, after new daily cases hit a record of 20 thousand.
The two new contagions by omicron now known also occurred before South Africa informed the WHO (World Health Organization) about the sequencing of the new variant, which was done on Wednesday (24) — and the country was praised for its speed in making the information public. The strain is considered to be at high risk, and there have been no reports of deaths associated with it.
The Dutch institute said that it is not possible to rule out the possibility that the omicron appeared in the south of the African continent and that it is investigating which people the two citizens initially identified with the strain had contact with.
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