The United Arab Emirates has reported its first confirmed case of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The UAE’s health ministry announced Wednesday that it had detected the case in an "African woman arriving from an African country via an Arab country.”

The variant was first announced by South Africa but has since been discovered to have been present earlier in Europe.

It has prompted governments around the globe to reimpose travel restrictions.

The UAE has registered about 742,100 COVID-19 cases and more than 2,100 deaths.