Home ›› 12 Dec 2021 ›› Front
Bangladesh has detected the Omicron variant of coronavirus in two female cricketers of the national women’s cricket team, who had returned from Zimbabwe recently.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque told a programme in the capital on Saturday the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) had detected the virus in the two players.
He said one of them is 21 years old and the other is 30, and both were isolating at a hotel in the capital.
“They are undergoing multiple tests. They are suffering from fever. However, their condition is stable now.”
IEDCR officials said they had collected nasal swabs from both cricketers on December 6 following the global genome sequence database GISAID rules.
The IEDCR-ideSHi genomics lab then completed the genome sequencing of the samples and identified them as the Omicron variant.
When asked about the situation of the other squad members, the health minister said they had tested negative.
But a Bangladesh Cricket Board physician told The Business Post they were yet to be informed of the test reports by the health authorities.
The cases were discovered five days after the women’s cricket team had returned home from the 2022 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe. The qualifying event was abandoned following concerns over the Omicron variant.
Despite the cancellation, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the West Indies have qualified for the mega event by virtue of their rankings.
They will join Australia, England, India, South Africa, and the host, New Zealand, in an eight-team contest to be held from March 4 to April 3 next year.
The government recently made a 14-day institutional quarantine mandatory for those returning from seven African countries – Botswana, Eswatini, Ghana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe – to prevent another possible wave of the pandemic.
In July this year, the Delta variant, which originated in neighbouring India, claimed many lives here.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) first described Omicron as a “variant of concern” in South Africa on November 24. It is the fifth SARS-CoV-2 strain to carry such a designation.
The variant has been reported in at least 57 nations.
The WHO recommended several steps to reduce the spread of Omicron, such as keeping a physical distance of at least one metre from others, wearing a well-fitting mask, opening windows to improve ventilation, avoiding poorly ventilated or crowded spaces, keeping hands clean, coughing or sneezing into a bent elbow or tissue, and getting vaccinated.
