A person who travelled from South Africa to New Zealand has been confirmed as having the BA.5 variant of Omicron.

This is the first known detection of the variant in New Zealand, said the ministry. According to the ministry, this follows the detection of BA.4 on May 1, also in a person who had travelled from South Africa.

It can take weeks or months to assess the severity of each new variant or sub-variant, so the Ministry of Health will continue to monitor the emerging evidence closely, it is said.

According to the ministry, Sunday's seven-day rolling average of community case numbers is 7,510, even a little bit higher than last Sunday's 7,414 reported cases. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been in self-isolation after her fiancée Clarke Gayford tested positive for Covid-19.

Ardern announced the news on Sunday morning via social media.

Meanwhile, the country reported the deaths of 15 people with Covid-19 amid 12,392 new community cases in the past two days.

In addition, 166 new cases of Covid-19 were detected at the New Zealand border during the weekend.

New Zealand has reported 986,261 confirmed cases of Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

(With UNI/Xinhua inputs)