Britain’s decision to impose a travel ban on all flights to and from South Africa over a new Covid19 variant discovered in the country has been followed by the same measure from European Union countries and the United States.
A senior South African official has criticised the British move as “hasty and unjustified” following an announcement that the country had discovered a new Covid-19 variant.
The UN World Health Organisation named the new highly transmissible variant as “omicron” following its closed-door meeting of experts in Geneva on Friday where Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergency director, praised South African public health institutions for picking up the signal of the new variant.
South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said his government’s announcement of the discovery of the new variant “was in the interest of transparency” – and not a reason for governments to trigger worldwide travel bans against South Africa and her neighbours.
Apart from South Africa, London has banned flights from Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia, Mozambique and Lesotho from going to and from Britain with immediate effect, and so has the European Union which has targeted the southern Africa states.
The United States, whose travel restrictions starts on Monday, has also banned most southern African countries travellers from going to the country until further notice, it announced.
Ryan warned that while some countries had systems in place to restrict travel, “it’s really important that there are no knee-jerk responses here — especially with relation to South Africa.”
“Because we’ve seen in the past, the minute that there is any mention of any kind of variation, then everyone is closing borders and restricting travel,” he said this as the UK led the way to place South Africa on the red list.
International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor said her government would engage with the British authorities to get them to reconsider their decision.
NM/as/APA