A 39-year-old man from Germany's Leipzig has been diagnosed with the Omicron variant of COVID-19. According to health officials, this is the first confirmed case in the country with no travel history.
The infected man had not travelled abroad recently nor had any contact with anyone who had travelled overseas, CNN quoted Leipzig Health Department director Regine Krause-Döring as saying.
Reportedly, this is the fourth Omicron variant case to be discovered in Germany. Two previous infections were detected in Munich and a third case was found in the state of Hesse, the report said.
Meanwhile, the Omicron variant was already in the Netherlands when South Africa alerted the World Health Organization about it last week, Dutch health authorities said on Tuesday, adding to fear and confusion over the new version of the coronavirus in a weary world hoping it had left the worst of the pandemic behind.
The Netherlands' RIVM health institute found Omicron in samples dating from November 19 and 23. The WHO said South Africa first reported the the variant to the UN healthy agency on November 24.
Following countries have confirmed Omicron infections:
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Botswana
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Germany
Hong Kong
Israel
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
