The Omicron variant was already in the Netherlands when South Africa alerted the World Health Organisation about it last week, Dutch health authorities say, adding to confusion over the new version of the coronavirus.
The Netherlands’ RIVM health institute found Omicron in samples dating from November 19 and 23.
South Africa first reported the the variant to the United Nations health agency on November 24.
It remains unclear where or when the variant first emerged – but that hasn’t stopped wary countries from rushing to impose travel restrictions, especially on visitors coming from southern Africa.
Those moves have been criticised by South Africa – and the WHO has urged against them, noting their limited effect.
Much is still not known about the variant. But the WHO has warned that the global risk from the variant is “very high” and early evidence suggests it could be more contagious.
The Dutch announcement on Tuesday further muddies the timeline on when the new variant actually emerged.
Previously, the Dutch officials had said they found the variant among passengers who came from South Africa on Friday – but these new cases predate that.
Authorities in the eastern German city of Leipzig, meanwhile, said on Tuesday they had confirmed an infection with the Omicron variant in a 39-year-old man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been.
Leipzig is in the eastern state of Saxony, which currently has Germany’s highest overall coronavirus infection rates.
Meanwhile, Japan and France announced their first cases of the new variant on Tuesday.
French authorities confirmed its presence in the French island territory of Reunion in the Indian Ocean.
Patrick Mavingui, a microbiologist at the island’s research clinic for infectious diseases, said the person who has tested positive for the new variant is a 53-year-old man who had travelled to Mozambique and stopped in South Africa before returning to Reunion.
The man was placed in quarantine.
He has “muscle pain and fatigue,” Mr Mavingui said, according to public television Reunion 1ere.
A day after banning all foreign visitors as an emergency precaution against the variant, Japan also confirmed its first case, in a visitor who had travelled from Namibia.
A government spokesperson said the patient, a man in his 30s, tested positive upon arrival at Narita airport on Sunday and was isolated and is being treated at a hospital.
Travel bans also continued to be imposed on Tuesday.
Cambodia barred entry to travellers from 10 African countries, two weeks after the country reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travellers.
While it has urged against border closures, the WHO has stressed that while scientists are hunting evidence to better understand this variant, countries should accelerate vaccinations as quickly as possible.
WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus voiced concern that some countries are introducing blanket measures aimed at the variant that he said were “not evidence-based or effective on their own” and were penalising southern African countries that reported the strain so quickly.
In a speech to the WHO’s 194 members, Mr urged them to take “rational, proportional risk-reduction measures” in keeping with the agency’s 2005 International Health Regulations.
“We still have more questions than answers about the effect of Omicron on transmission, severity of disease, and the effectiveness of tests, therapeutics and vaccines,” he said.
The WHO said there are “considerable uncertainties” about the Omicron variant.
But it said preliminary evidence raises the possibility that the variant has mutations that could help it both evade an immune-system response and boost its ability to spread from one person to another.
Despite the global worry, doctors in South Africa are reporting patients are suffering mostly mild symptoms so far.
But they warn that it is early and most of the new cases are in people in their 20s and 30s, who generally do not get as sick from COVID-19 as older patients.
-with agencies
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