Japan said on Thursday a staff member at a facility housing people found positive with coronavirus after arriving in the country had tested positive for Omicron, in the first case of a domestically-acquired infection of the variant.
The infected person, a woman in her 30s who belongs to the quarantine station at Kansai International Airport in Osaka, western Japan, has no recent history of traveling overseas, the health ministry said.
"It is strongly suspected that the infection took place within the facility ... This woman is now in hospital and her condition is stable," a health ministry official said at a media briefing.
The official declined to specify what type of tasks she had performed at the facility.
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The Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa and Hong Kong last month, has now been reported by more than 70 countries, according to the World Health Organization, including in other Asian countries Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Preliminary evidence indicates that COVID-19 vaccines may be less effective against infection and transmission linked to the variant, which also carries a higher risk of reinfection, the WHO said.