SHAFAQNA- France and Lebanon confirmed first cases of new Covid-19 strain. The French Health Ministry said a French man who arrived in France from the British capital, London, on December 19 had tested positive for the new variant on Friday. He had no symptoms and was isolating in his home in the central city of Tours. In addition to this first case, several other positive samples that “may suggest the VOC 202012/01 variant are being sequenced” by the specialist laboratories of the national Pasteur Institute, it said.
In Lebanon, the country’s Caretaker Health Minister said on Friday that a case of the new variant was detected on a flight arriving from London.The Middle East Airlines flight 202 arrived on December 21, Hamad Hassan said, urging all passengers on the flight and their families to take precautionary measures, AlJazeera reported.