The Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands has confirmed the first case of Covid-19 of the Ómicron variant registered in the archipelago. It is a middle-aged man with a complete vaccination schedule who arrived in Gran Canaria from South Africa a few days ago and who, after presenting symptoms compatible with Covid and his positive being confirmed by PCR, is complying with home isolation, according to the protocol.
In addition, the Doctor Negrín University Hospital of Gran Canaria continues to carry out the sequencing process of other samples taken from four other people who tested positive for Covid-19 to determine if the variant of the strain in question is the one called Ómicron. The result of these other sequencings will be known "in the next few days."
"Regarding the Ómicron variant, it is necessary to wait to know its evolution to determine if its incidence in the Archipelago may increase, although given the experience and percentages of evolution collected in other territories where it is present and the behavior of other strains of SARS-CoV-2, it is foreseeable that it will gain prominence, although for now no behaviors are extracted that may become dominant," they specify from the Ministry.
Monitoring in the genomic surveillance network
After confirming this first case of Ómicron in the Archipelago, monitoring will continue from the genomic surveillance network for Covid-19 in the Canary Islands, which includes a protocolized system for the detection, monitoring and control of the presence of the different variants of SARS-Cov2 in the Islands.
This network, launched through the Directorate of Public Health, establishes a series of controls that allow obtaining a real radiography of the incidence of the different strains of the virus in the Islands.
