File Photo: Myanmar’s Ministry of Health has confirmed the country’s first six cases of the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. According to the ministry’s release on Monday, the BA.4 subvariant was found in one sample and the BA.5 in five. / Htet Wai / The Irrawaddy

File Photo: Healthcare workers preparing swab samples from patients tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus at a health centre in Demoso township in Myanmar’s Kayah state. A handful of Myanmar nurses hiding from the junta run makeshift clinics to treat Covid patients and resistance fighters using medicine smuggled past military checkpoints, their bags packed and ready to flee as fighting rages around them. AFP

File Photo: Health workers carrying out a Covid-19 test on local workers outside a market in Laiza in Kachin state, where a rebel group on November 11 locked down the town on the porous China border following a spike in coronavirus cases. AFP