Brahmanbaria authorities to red flag houses of 7 South Africa returnees

Amid a global alarm over the new Omicron variant of Covid, authorities in Brahmanbaria have decided to hang red flags outside the houses of seven South Africa returnees.

The decision was taken at an emergency meeting of the Corona Prevention Committee on Monday evening, chaired by District Commissioner Hayat-Ud-Doula-Khan.

The committee also issued directions to the Akhaura land port authorities for ensuring strict screening of people entering the country.

The committee also decided to initiate immediate steps to vaccinate the 200,000 people waiting for the Covid shots.

Recently, three residents of Kasba upazila, two of sadar upazila, and one each from Bancharampur and Nabinagar upazila in Brahmanbaria district returned from South Africa, where the new variant is said to have originated.

Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world raced Friday to contain the new coronavirus variant potentially more dangerous than the one that has fuelled relentless waves of infection on nearly every continent.

A World Health Organization panel named the variant 'Omicron' and classified it as a highly transmissible virus of concern, the same category that includes the predominant Delta variant, which is still a scourge driving higher cases of sickness and death in Europe and parts of the US.