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Mexico City secretary of health says no recorded cases of new Omicron variant in Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico — The Mexico City Secretary of Health says that to date, Mexico has not recorded any cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant. The report came on the heels of the announcement of the new variant by global health authorities who say Omicron has already been detected in several countries.

In Mexico, Oliva López Arellano, the Secretary of Health of Mexico City (CDMX), reported that at the moment, there no cases of the new Omicron variant in the capital city or in any state of the country.

At a press conference Saturday, the local official said that genomic surveillance is currently being carried out to detect the Omicron variant.

“Until now, we have not documented this variant in the city or in the country, but it is being monitored. Genomic surveillance is being carried out to detect not only this, but any variant,” she explained.

López Arellano pointed out that investigations on the new Omicron variant are ongoing by global health experts.

“It is a recently identified variant. Three days ago, the WHO gave it a name and said that it is being monitored since it has 30 variations in its configuration, which makes it much more transmissible.

“It also has the ability to evade the mechanisms of natural immunity and also vaccination mechanisms. These are the reasons why the working groups, the scientists and also the Health Secretaries, are on alert at all monitoring sites,” she said.

The new variant, known as Omicron, was first identified in South Africa, but it remains unclear if that is where it originated or if it arrived there from another region.

As of Sunday, Omicron had been detected in several countries including South Africa, Botswana, Australia, the UK, Germany, Italy, Belgium and at least two cases in the UK, which has prompted numerous travel bans from the infected African countries.

Several countries have reacted to the news of the newly discovered variant by closing their borders to travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.