Six cases of the Omicron variant have now been identified in Scotland, as the new Covid-19 continues to spread across the globe.
The Scottish Government announced that four people who tested positive for the strain are in Lanarkshire, with two in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
Public Health Scotland and local health protection teams are scrambling to establish where the virus originated and find any individuals who have come into contact with those infected.
It comes amid growing concern around the new strain of coronavirus, which experts fear may be more infectious and potentially have some resistance to vaccines.
Scientists are desperately gathering data before being able to confirm if those suspicions are true, amid widespread concern and uncertainty.
Three cases of the variant have already been identified in the UK, with various other countries around the world also reporting cases.
But experts have warned that confirmed case numbers are likely to grow and that the strain is likely to be far more widely seeded than official counts suggest.
Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said: ‘This will be a worrying time for the six people now identified as having the new variant. All will receive expert help and support and Public Health Scotland will undertake enhanced contact tracing in all cases.
‘This will help establish the origin of the virus and any further individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.’
He added: ‘There is still much to learn about the Omicron variant.
‘Questions remain about its severity, transmissibility and response to treatments or vaccines and scientists are working at pace to provide additional information.
‘Until more is known we must be cautious and do everything we can to minimise the risk of spreading infection.’
The first two cases in the UK – in Nottingham and Chelmsford, Essex – were announced on Saturday, while a third was detected on Sunday in a person with travel links to southern Africa.
Britain will convene an urgent meeting of G7 health ministers on Monday to discuss the variant first detected in South Africa.
On Sunday, the South African doctor who first discovered the new variant played down the severity of symptoms among patients – and suggested that the UK may be ‘panicking unnecessarily’ about it.
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