Health

Bangladesh reports first Omicron cases among cricketers who visited Zimbabwe

Dhaka, Dec 11 (EFE)- Bangladesh on Saturday confirmed its first cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, found in the samples of two women cricketers who had recently participated in a competition in Zimbabwe.

“Today we got confirmation that the two players have contacted Omicron variant of the virus,” Robed Amin, a spokesperson of the Directorate General of Health Services, told EFE.

Later, Bangladeshi Health Minister Zahid Maleque told reporters in a program in Dhaka that the authorities were tracing all the people who had come in touch with the players since their return from Zimbabwe and testing them.

“The two cricketers who were found to have contracted Omicron, we have kept them in quarantine,” Maleque said, adding that the two women were doing fine and had received necessary treatment.

On Dec. 6, the Bangladesh Cricket Board had first reported that two members of its team had tested positive for coronavirus on the sixth day after returning from the African nation.

Bangladesh participated in the ICC Women’s World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe from November 21.

On Nov. 27 the organizers announced that the World Cup was being postponed, as concerns over the spread of Omicron led to several African countries facing travel restrictions from the rest of the world.

The women’s team returned home on Dec. 1 and was put into mandatory institutional quarantine for 14 days on arrival.

The BCB has not revealed the name of the cricketers affected by the virus.

Bangladesh is yet to impose any formal travel restrictions on countries where the variant was first detected.

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