By Raf Casert -
The Associated Press
The omicron variant of the coronavirus was already circulating in Europe when South Africa alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) of its detection last week, health authorities in the Netherlands reported Tuesday, increasing fear and confusion about it. new version of the virus in a world exhausted and hurt after almost two years of pandemic.
The Dutch health institute RIVM detected the omicron strain in samples taken on November 19 and 23.
The WHO said South Africa first reported the new variant to the United Nations health agency on November 24.
It is still unknown where or when exactly the variant appeared, but that has not stopped some countries from taking the decision to establish restrictions on flights from southern Africa.
This measure has been widely criticized by South Africa, and the WHO has urged not to adopt it because its effect is limited.
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Scientists still ignore the characteristics of omicron, but the WHO has already called the global risk it poses "very high" and suggested that it could be more contagious than other variants.
The announcement by the European authorities further complicates the chronology of the appearance of this new strain.
The Netherlands previously said that this version of the coronavirus had been detected on Friday in passengers from South Africa, but the new cases cited are earlier than that date.
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Authorities in the eastern German city of Leipzig confirmed on Tuesday the case of a 39-year-old man with an omicron who had not been abroad or had contact with anyone who had done so, the news agency reported. DPA.
Leipzig is in the eastern state of Saxony, which currently has the highest infection rates in the country.
Japan and France announced their first cases of the new variant on Tuesday.
Dozens of people line up for a flight to Paris in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021.Jerome Delay / AP
The French authorities confirmed their presence in the overseas territory of La Reunion, in the Indian Ocean.
Patrick Mavingui, a microbiologist with the island's infectious disease research clinic, said the person who has tested positive for the new strain is a 53-year-old man who traveled to Mozambique and stopped in South Africa before returning to Reunion.
The man was quarantined and has "muscle pain and fatigue," Mavingui said, according to public television Reunion 1ere.
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A day after banning all foreign tourists as a precaution against the variant, Japan also confirmed its first case in a visitor who had traveled from Namibia.
A government spokesman said the patient, a man in his 30s, tested positive upon arrival at Narita airport on Sunday, was isolated and is being treated at a hospital.
Travel bans adopted by other countries also followed on Tuesday.
Cambodia banned travelers from 10 African countries, citing the threat of the variant.
The move came just two weeks after Cambodia reopened its borders to fully vaccinated tourists.
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Although it has urged not to close the borders, the WHO has stressed that, while scientists try to better understand how this variant works, countries must accelerate the vaccination of their population as soon as possible.
The WHO acknowledged that there are "considerable uncertainties" about omicron and that preliminary data raise the possibility that it has a number of mutations that facilitate its spread.
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President Joe Biden said on Monday he was concerned but not alarmed by the emergence of this strain and insisted that vaccination is the only way to prevent its spread.
Despite global concern, South African doctors insist that patients are so far suffering from mild symptoms.
However, they warn that it is early and that most of the new cases are in people in their 20s and 30s who generally do not get as sick of COVID-19 as older patients.