There are rising concerns that new variants of Covid-19 may be resistant to vaccines.
Professor of Health Systems in Dublin City University (DCU) Anthony Staines said experts are calling for a "global effort to push cases down everywhere, as far as possible" to avoid new waves of infections.
Prof Staines said the new variant discovered in Vietnam, which has been described as a hybrid of the Indian and UK variants, could happen in Ireland, according to the Irish Examiner.
"Vietnam has had an incredibly successful response to this pandemic, one of the most successful in the world, but they are now having cases. They have a new variant which has not been identified before," Prof Staines said.
"This could happen anywhere. It could happen in Ireland tomorrow," he added.
The Vietnamese health department confirmed the discovery on Saturday, describing it as "very dangerous".
Variants continue to be a concern for many countries, especially as restrictions start to ease, with particularly cautious approaches being taken for the resumption of non-essential international travel.
In the UK, the spread of the Indian variant has called their furthering easing of restrictions on June 21st into question, with the reproductive or R rate in England now estimated to be 1.1, meaning infections are growing there.
