WARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish woman has tested positive for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in China, Poland’s health ministry said on Tuesday, after Chinese media reported that the first case on the county’s mainland had been detected in a Pole.
The first case of Omicron in mainland China was detected in the northern port city of Tianjin in a traveller who arrived in the city from overseas on Dec. 9, the state-run Tianjin Daily reported on Monday.
The Global Times said the first Omicron infection on the mainland was of a Pole who arrived in Tianjin from Warsaw.
Polish Health Ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz told reporters a teenage Polish woman had tested positive for Omicron in China, with the variant being identified on Monday.
She is in isolation in hospital and asymptomatic, he said, adding that there was no risk to the teenager’s life.
He said one other person on the plane had tested positive for coronavirus, but it was not yet known if this was Omicron. Andrusiewicz said a test taken before the teenager flew had been negative. Poland has not yet reported any Omicron cases.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, additional reporting by Ryan Woo in Beijing, Editing by William Maclean)
