Montenegrin epidemiologists said on Tuesday that the presence of the Delta coronavirus variant had been determined in the country.

This confirmed the suspicion of the health authorities that the new variant of the virus is present after the number of infections surged in early August.

The presence of the Delta variant was confirmed after the arrival of results from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, to which samples from Montenegro had been sent, Montenegrin health authorities said.

They recalled that they had been expecting the detection and presence of the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Montenegro for a while now and that they had been warning the public of the possibility of its presence.

The Delta variant is much more contagious, so it causes infection in a larger number of people, Montenegrin epidemiologists said, recalling that the variant had first appeared in India in October 2020, and in June 2021 90% of the infected people in Great Britain were infected with this variant.

As for countries in the region, Montenegrin epidemiologists recall that the Delta variant was registered in Croatia on 28 June, a day later in North Macedonia, and on 1 July in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Serbia.

In recent days, Montenegro has been logging about 350 cases a day, and most of them are from cities on the Montenegrin coast, where there are currently nearly 150,000 tourists. There are currently about 4,500 active coronavirus cases in the country.