HANOI, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) — Vietnam has detected its first COVID-19 case of Omicron variant in a quarantine facility in the capital Hanoi, the country’s Ministry of Health confirmed on Tuesday.

The patient arrived in Hanoi on Dec. 19 from Britain and tested positive for COVID-19. He was immediately transferred to a quarantine center under a hospital in the capital while his sample was sent for genome sequencing test. The result achieved on Dec. 21 confirmed that he had the Omicron variant, according to the ministry.

Health authorities will continue to closely monitor the situation of the COVID-19 epidemic in general and the infectivity of the Omicron variant in particular, the ministry said, calling people to adhere to COVID-19 prevention and control measures and get fully vaccinated.

The government of the capital Hanoi on Monday mandated that everyone arriving in the city from the countries and regions, where the Omicron variant has been detected, should be put under quarantine regardless of their vaccination or recovery status.

Read more: Vietnam reports 15,270 new COVID-19 cases, 28,857 deaths in total

Hanoi, currently the nation’s coronavirus epicenter, has also instructed laboratories to conduct gene sequencing tests to detect the variant.

By Monday, Vietnam had confirmed a total of 1,666,545 COVID-19 infections, with over 1.66 million cases detected in the current wave which was triggered by the contagious Delta variant since late April, according to the health ministry.  Enditem