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Keywords: Omicron; SARS-CoV-2 variant; spreading; importations EN Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant spreading importations 1 3 3 09/21/22 20220801 NES 220801 South Africa (SA) first detected the B.1.1.529 SARS-CoV-2 variant from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021 and reported the variant to the World Health Organization (WHO) on 24 November 2021.[1] Two days later, the WHO named the variant Omicron and classified it as a variant of concern (VOC) because of increasing detections in SA and large number of mutations in the immunogenic regions of the spike protein.[1] In addition to increasing cases in SA, the new variant may have been prevalent in other locations in southern Africa. If the sequences we analysed were disproportionately sampled from regions of SA in which the Omicron variant first emerged, then we may overestimate the relative frequency of Omicron across all of SA. [Extracted from the article]