Permanent Secretary for Health Doctor James Fong says, we currently have COVID-positive travellers in quarantine who arrived in the country from African states before we knew about the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
Doctor Fong says they have been quarantined in line with the stringent measures we apply to countries we consider a red zone for ongoing viral spread.
He says their specimens will be forwarded this week overseas for genetic sequencing.
Doctor Fong adds the reports about the new variant continue with new evidence that the Omicron variant had already achieved global spread well before it was reported by South African scientists, establishing itself in some European countries.
He says these are countries that have the ability to check for the variant while other countries do not have genetic sequencing and cannot confirm cases of the variant at this time.
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