East Africa is on alert as the Uganda health minister confirms the country’s first cases of Covid-19 omicron variant today, December 11, 2021.

Uganda Health Minister, Jane Aceng said seven travellers were tested on Tuesday, December 7th and the results came out positive.

The carriers are five travellers from Nigeria and two from South Africa. The travellers arrived in Uganda a week ago raising fear of the number of people who might have been infected.

A few days ago the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) placed Tanzania and six other countries on a red flag list, warning its citizens from traveling to these countries.

Uganda joins 10 other African countries where the variant has been detected including; South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Senegal, Ghana, Namibia, and Tunisia.