Rio De Janeiro: Brazil became the first Latin American country to report cases of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus. According to the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, the country’s first two cases involve a couple, both of whom tested positive for the new variant.
The man arrived in Sao Paulo from South Africa on November 23 and his wife had not travelled, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Brazilian government temporarily banned flights from South Africa, where Omicron was first detected November 9.
The World Health Organization warned on Friday that Omicron was “of concern” since it has undergone multiple mutations.
Brazil, a global Covid-19 hot spot, has reported more than 22 million cases and nearly 615,000 related deaths.
Similarly, Portugal registered a new case of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, which has been linked with a football team where the country’s first batch of infections with the new variant were detected.
The patient had contact with the personnel of the Belenenses SAD football club on Tuesday, which had already identified 13 infected people after an athlete returned from South Africa, according to Luis Amaro, President of the Board of Directors of Hospital, Garcia de Orta, in the metropolitan region of Lisbon.
The hospital also identified possible contacts of risk among health professionals who treated the infected, as well as exposed risk patients and caregivers, Xinhua news agency reported.
Portugal has registered 1,147,249 cases of infection and 18,441 deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the Health Directorate.
