Two people in the Canadian capital city of Ottawa have been found to be infected with the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, the Ontario provincial government said. The two people recently travelled to Nigeria.
"Ottawa Public Health is conducting case and contact management and the patients are in isolation," according to a statement issued by Ontario Health Minister, Christine Elliott and the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Kieran Moore on Sunday.
"The Ontario Covid-19 Genomic Network is continuing to actively monitor for all potential variants circulating in the province, including the Omicron variant, and is conducting genomic sequencing on 100 per cent of eligible Covid-19 positive samples."
Point-of-arrival testing for COVID-19 will be encouraged for all travellers irrespective of where they are coming from, according to the statement.
On Friday, several countries, including Canada, announced travel restrictions for southern African countries.
"The best defence against the Omicron variant is stopping it at our border," the Ontario government emphasised, adding that it is "prepared and ready to respond to this news variant."
According to the World Health Organization, the variant was reported by South Africa on November 24, with the first confirmed case coming from a specimen collected on November 9.
(with ANI inputs)
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