Iran reports its first case of Omicron coronavirus variant

Medical personnel wearing protective suits work at a new coronavirus (COVID-19) section of the Masih Daneshvarii Hospital on 19 August 2020 in Tehran, Iran. [Majid Saeedi/Getty Images]

Iran has confirmed its first case of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, the health ministry said on Sunday, while authorities urged Iranians to get their booster doses in the Middle East’s worst-hit country, Reuters reports.

Deputy Health Minister Kamal Heidari told state TV that the infected person was a middle-age Iranian man who recently returned to Iran from the United Arab Emirates.

“The necessary measures were taken to quarantine this person who lives in Tehran and those who were in contact with him,” Heidari said. “This is the first case of Omicron (coronavirus) variant that has been identified in Iran.”

Coronavirus deaths have reached 131,083, the health ministry said, while infected cases rose by 1,968 in the past 24 hours to 6,170,979 in the Islamic Republic.

More than 50 million of Iran’s population of approximately 85 million have received two doses of coronavirus vaccine.

READ: Israel to impose travel ban on Britain and Denmark over coronavirus concerns

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.