More than 40 omikron cases identified in Europe

At least 44 people in the European Union have so far tested positive for the omikron variant of the coronavirus. The new variant has also been doing the rounds on our continent for longer than expected.

–

The variant has been identified in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain and Sweden, and in Réunion, a French overseas department east of Madagascar.

According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), most people who tested positive have recently been to Africa. No one is known to have become seriously ill from it and there are no known deaths in Europe. There are also a few suspicious cases, in which it is not yet certain that the omikron variant is involved.

Longer in circulation

This mutated variant was reported for the first time by South Africa last week. By then, the variant had already spread to Europe. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) found the worrying variant in test samples taken in the Netherlands on 19 and 23 November.

The only finding of the variant in our country so far was in a sample taken on November 22 from a young woman who had returned from Egypt 11 days earlier, via Turkey.

In the Netherlands

The omikron variant of the coronavirus has already spread within the national borders of the Netherlands. One of the people who had contracted the variant before, in addition to the fourteen people who returned infected from South Africa, had not been on a trip.

The institute previously reported on Tuesday that two people who tested positive on November 19 and 23 were wearing the omikron variant. This has become apparent from further analysis of their test samples. One of those two people had no travel history, as the RIVM calls it, the other had recently been to the south of Africa.

more contagious

Meanwhile, dozens of cases have surfaced in Europe, Canada, Israel, Hong Kong and Japan. The omikron variant is said to be much more contagious than its predecessors. However, little is known about the course of the disease and how vaccines work.

– .