JERUSALEM: Israel has confirmed a case of a sub-variant of the Delta strain of the coronavirus previously reported in some European countries, the health ministry said.
“The variant AY 4.2. that has been discovered in a number of countries in Europe has been identified in Israel,” a ministry statement said late Tuesday.
An 11-year-old boy arriving from Europe was the carrier, the ministry said, adding that the case was identified at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. The boy was quarantined and no further contacts have been discovered, the ministry said.
The AY 4.2. variant has turned up several times in the United Kingdom.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held an emergency meeting on Wednesday with health ministry officials and announced that Israel would take measures “to preserve the positive results of the fight against the virus,” a statement from his office said.
Bennett requested that an epidemiological investigation into the new variant be bolstered, and urged liaison with other countries where the sub-variant has been detected.
Changes to entry requirements for visitors would also be considered.
Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology at University College London, has said that the subvariant is rare and does not appear to pose the same risk of significantly increased transmission as other strains.
The variant was discovered as Israel considers loosening restrictions on tourism following a drop in cases.
An earlier plan to reopen the borders foundered amid a rise in cases driven by the Delta strain.
In late August and early September, new cases topped 11,000 a day.
Authorities launched an aggressive campaign to inoculate citizens with a third, booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which drove down infections.
Israel reports subvariant of Delta coronavirus strain
https://arab.news/bdbet
Israel reports subvariant of Delta coronavirus strain
- An 11-year-old boy arriving from Europe was the carrier
- The variant was discovered as Israel considers loosening restrictions on tourism
Election of new Iraqi president delayed by Kurds
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament postponed the election of a president on Tuesday to allow Kurdish rivals time to agree on a candidate.
Parliamentary Speaker Haibat Al-Halbussi received requests from Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, to postpone the vote to allow both parties more time to reach a deal.
By convention, a Shi’ite holds the powerful post of prime minister, the parliamentary Speaker is a Sunni and the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd.
Under a tacit agreement between the two main Kurdish parties, a PUK member holds the Iraqi presidency, while the president and regional premier of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is selected from the KDP. But this time the KDP has named Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as its own candidate for the presidency.
Once elected, the president will then have 15 days to appoint a prime minister, widely expected to be Nouri Al-Maliki, who held the post from 2006 to 2014. The shrewd 75-year-old politician is Iraq’s only two-term premier since the 2003 US-led invasion.
The Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shi’ite parties that holds a parliamentary majority, has already endorsed Maliki.
