The Ministry of Health and Population stressed on Tuesday that no cases of the new coronavirus variant known as Omicron (B.1.1.529) were recorded in the country.
Health Ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said: “It is impossible to prevent the entry of the Omicron variant into Egypt, but we can discover it.”
Abdel Ghaffar explained that passengers coming from South Africa are subject to quarantine and medical examination, and if they are confirmed positive, they return to their country.
He further noted that there is no change in the date for implementing the ban on unvaccinated citizens from entering government institutions, and revealed that the vaccination website will be opened to register children aged 12-15 years within hours.
Omicron was first detected on 23 November in South Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution had announced Omicron as a variant “of concern”.
According to the WHO “the epidemiological situation in South Africa has been characterised by three distinct peaks in reported cases, the latest of which was predominantly the Delta variant. In recent weeks, infections have increased steeply, coinciding with the detection of the B.1.1.529 variant. The first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021.”
