JAKARTA (REUTERS) - Indonesia has identified its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Thursday (Dec 16).
The case, an employee at the Wisma Atlet hospital in Jakarta, was detected on Wednesday evening.
The minister said there had been no community transmission of Omicron so far - but there were five more suspected Omicron cases, comprising two Indonesians who had recently returned from the United States and Britain, and three Chinese nationals currently in quarantine in Manado, North Sulawesi.
The government is waiting for genomic sequencing to determine those cases.
The Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa last month, has now been reported in more than 70 countries, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), including in neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.
Preliminary evidence indicates that Covid-19 vaccines may be less effective against infection and transmission linked to the variant, which also carries a higher risk of reinfection, the WHO said.
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