Jerusalem: Israel has identified a Covid-19 variant case with a large number of mutations first detected in South Africa, the Ministry of Health said Friday.
“The variants found in South African countries have been identified in Israel,” said the ministry, added it was recorded “to someone who returned from Malawi”.
Two more cases were detected in “people who returned from abroad”, he said, adding that they had been placed in quarantine.
Three people were all vaccinated, the Ministry of Health said, without determining the number of doses or types of vaccines.
News of the spread to Israel came a day after scientists in South Africa said they had detected strain B.1.1.529 new with at least 10 mutations, compared to two for Delta.
The variant is “serious attention” and has been blamed for the surge in infection figures, the authorities in South Africa said Thursday.
It has also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong among travelers from South Africa, they said.
Israel was one of the first countries to launch a vaccine against Coronavirus last year thanks to the agreement with Pfizer which gave it access to millions of doses in exchange for data on the efficacy of vaccines.
More than 5.7 million of nine million people in the country are now fully vaccinated.
Israeli Prime Minister Naphtali Bennett held a meeting on Friday morning with public health officials and the government to take the Covid situation stock in the country.
The World Health Organization will hold a meeting on Friday to decide whether new tensions must be determined as a variant of “interest” or “concern”.
Israel has late Thursday placed on the “Red List” of South African Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe because of the discovery of the variant.
During the summer, the Jewish state experienced an increase in Coronavirus infection, driven by a Delta variant, and launched one of the earliest campaigns for Booster Shots.
On Tuesday, Israel launched Covid-19 vaccination for children aged five to 11 years, only one from a handful of countries to include young children who tried to stem other pandemic waves.
Earlier this month, Israel held a “drill game war” if there was a new Lethal variant outbreak in Covid-19.
Simulation includes various aspects of the crisis, including mass inoculation, booking curfew and forcing flight ban.