Indonesia says detects first locally transmitted Omicron case

FILE PHOTO: A healthcare worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) takes a swab sample to test for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a drive-through testing site in Jakarta, Indonesia, December 16, 2021. REUTERS/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian health authorities were conducting contact tracing on Tuesday after detecting the Southeast Asian country's first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the community, health ministry official Siti Nadia Tarmizi said.

The first confirmed case was a 37-year-old male who was from the city of Medan and had visited a restaurant in Jakarta's central business district earlier this month, Tarmizi told a news conference.