Saturday, Alberta, Canada recorded its first case of the mutated COVID-19 virus which was detected in South Africa. According to the Alberta health authorities, it is the first infection of its kind on Canadian soil.

Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw, tweeted: “Alberta has detected its first case of the South African variant of COVID-19. This case involved a recent traveller. The individual is in quarantine & there’s no evidence at this time that the virus has spread to others.”

End of December, Canada announced the registration of the first mutated COVID-19 infection from the UK. As a result, Ottawa suspended all flights to and from the UK however, this decision was cancelled shortly after.

Since December, Canada has witnessed a sharp acceleration in the spread of the virus, which has necessitated re-imposing a lockdown in the two provinces most affected by the pandemic, Ontario and Quebec. In Quebec, a night curfew is to be imposed Saturday evening, making it the first of its kind in Canada since the start of the pandemic.

Ottawa gave the green light to use the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and launched a historic vaccination campaign mid-December.

Friday, Canada, which has a population of 38 million, has recorded more than 640,000 cases of the virus and about 16,700 deaths.