The Hamas-controlled health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday it had identified the first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the coastal enclave.
The carrier is a Gaza resident who was infected within the Strip, ministry official Majdi Dhair told a news conference.
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Dhair said this meant the variant, first identified in southern Africa and Hong Kong last month, existed in Gaza and was now spreading among the population. The discovery poses a new challenge to the enclave's under-developed health system.
"We are ahead of difficult days. It is expected that the Omicron variant will spread fast," he told reporters. Gaza, with a population of 2.2 million people, has registered 189,837 COVID-19 infections and 1,691 deaths.
