Omicron Variant: Country logs 4 new cases

Four new Omicron Covid cases were reported in the country yesterday.

With this, the total number of confirmed Omicron variant cases in Bangladesh went up to seven, according to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) -- a Germany based web database.

The new patients infected with Omicron include a 33-year-old woman from the capital's Basabo area. The three others, including two women aged 30 and 47, and a man aged 84, are from Banani.

The GISAID said International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) collected the nasopharyngeal swab from the 33-year-old while the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research collected samples from the others.

The samples of the 33-year-old woman was collected on December 8 while the rest on December 23.

Earlier on Monday night, GISAID published the country's thirdOmicron Covid case on its website, which was also detected in Dhaka through active surveillance.

On December 9, two cricketers of the Bangladesh women's cricket team became the firstin the country to test positive for Omicron after returning home from their tour of Zimbabwe.

Amid the reports of Omicron infections, the government stepped up health screening at all ports in the country from December 3.

The first case of Omicron variant was reported in South Africa on November 18. Since then, cases have been reported in at least 119 countries or territories, according to media reports.

The variant has caused a spike in new cases of Covid-19 across Europe and America.