Maldives is faced with fears of an Omicron community spread across the entire nation, says Dr. Nazla Rafeeq, Medical Officer at the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

During a press conference hosted by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday, Dr. Nazla revealed that infections have been spiraling over the past three weeks.

She confirmed that the more transmissible variant of Covid-19, Omicron is present in the Maldives and highlighted that their most recent findings indicate that seven local cases of Omicron have been confirmed so far, excluding the first case.

Stressing that Omicron is sweeping across the globe at a rapid rate, and that the variant has been found to be more transmissible as per findings. She noted that Omicron cases take just one to three days to double.

Dr. Nazla went on to add that although the Delta variant is currently dominant, Omicron is expected to snowball across the nation in the coming days.

She added that although the Delta variant was mostly observed across the capital region, the entire nation faces the fear of the Omicron outbreak.

With this being said, she stated that the Omicron outbreak is expected to peak by month-end.

The presser was also joined by State Minister for Health Dr. Shah Mahir and Epidemiologist at HPA, Dr. Ibrahim Afzal.