Bangladesh reports 10 more omicron cases

Bangladesh has detected the omiron variant of COVID-19 in 10 more patients.

With the new cases, the tally of infections from the fast-spreading strain has doubled to 20 in the space of a month.

All the patients are residents of Dhaka.

Germany’s Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, or GISAID, reported the new cases on Thursday.

Their samples were collected between Dec 14 and Jan 4 for genome sequencing by International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh and the Institute of Developing Science And Health Initiative. They were later submitted to GISAID.

Among the latest cases, seven are women aged between 18 and 53. Two of the men are in their 60s.

Bangladesh confirmed its first cases of omicron on Dec 9 after the infection was found in two women cricketers, who returned from Zimbabwe.

On Thursday, the government reported 1,140 new COVID-19 cases, the highest in a day since Sept 29 and a 27.8 percent jump from the day before.

COVID-19 infections have been surging in recent weeks, prompting fears of a third wave of infections in the country.

In a bid to ward off the threat of omicron, the government is expected to issue a raft of new restrictions in the coming days.

Omicron was first discovered in South Africa and the World Health Organization flagged soon it as the “variant of concern”.

The variant’s discovery was swiftly followed by the identification of cases across the globe and it is now believed to be the dominant strain worldwide.