MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. About 100 people have been placed in an observation facility with suspected COVID-19 after arriving from South Africa. Twenty-four of them were taken to hospital, Anna Popova, chief of Russia’s sanitary watchdog said on Tuesday.
"Any ailment or fever are seen as grounds to take a person to hospital. About 100 people from among those who arrived [from South Africa] are at an observation facility and 24 of them have been taken to hospital from there. Most of those hospitalized have positive PCR tests, but some have negative tests but clinical symptoms," she said in an interview with the Vesti daily news roundup on the Rossiya-1 television channel.
According to Popova, two cases of the new SARS-CoV-2 strain, Omicron, have been confirmed in Russia.
On November 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated B.1.1.529 as a "Variant of Concern" and assigned it the Greek letter Omicron. It also said that the new variant has "a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning."
According to experts, several mutations in the virus’ S-protein are potentially capable of hampering the neutralization of the pathogen by antibodies and hence reduce the efficacy of the current vaccines. The new variant potentially may also be more transmittable than other variants.
Most of the Omicron cases have been reported from South Africa. However, no deaths associated with this strain have been confirmed.