Covid Omicron Variant, South Africa Covid Variant, Delta Variant: Botswana Detected 19 new cases of Covid ‘Omicron’ variant: Health Minister

Botswana is the only African country outside of South Africa with reported Omicron cases.

Gaborone, Botswana:

Botswana, the only African country outside of South Africa to have reported cases of Omicron, said on Sunday it had detected 19 new cases of the Covid variant, including the first four announced last week. prior to.

“As of today, we have recorded a total of 19 cases of this disease,” Health Minister Edwin Dikoloti said at a press conference in the capital Gaborone.

The South African nation on Friday announced that the highly mutated variant had been detected in four foreign nationals who entered Botswana on 7 November on a diplomatic mission.

The announcement comes a day after South African scientists identified the variant, triggering a wave of travel bans on flights from the region.

Dikoloti said most of Botswana’s 19 cases came from abroad and many had attended similar events.

Botswana has declined to disclose the origins of the four diplomats, saying this will further “geopoliticize” the virus.

“We are concerned that there appear to have been attempts to stigmatize the country where it was discovered,” said Dikoloti, referring to several media reports describing Omicron as a “Botswana variant”.

“The discovery in this case is considered causal,” he said.

The country of 2.4 million people has reported about 194,900 cases of coronavirus and 2,416 deaths since the pandemic began.

Just over 20 percent of its population is fully vaccinated.

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