A doctor told the Nova daily newspaper that coronavirus infections were on the rise over the past few days with patients coming back from vacation abroad with symptoms.

Dr Dragan Miljkovic, GP, said that the strain has COVID symptoms but can easily be mistaken for allergies and progresses quickly to the lungs. He said that people who have not been vaccinated show serious symptoms while people who have been inoculated have mild symptoms with young people having fevers with temperatures up to 40 degrees lasting for days.

The doctor warned that currently available tests are unreliable for the new mutant strains. He warned that patients with chronic ailments are the most at risk.

Nova said that the new COVID strain BA2.86 was registered two weeks ago in the US, UK, Denmark and Israel.