“With the Omicron variant already detected in several regions of the world, banning travel from Africa is an attack on global solidarity,” said Matshidiso Moeti, regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO)

Covid: the position of the head of the WHO regional director for sub-Saharan Africa is, in some respects, in line with that expressed by the South African Head of State, Cyril Ramaphosa

The president said yesterday he was “deeply disappointed” by the restrictions imposed by the United States, the European Union, Japan, Israel and Great Britain on arrivals from his and other countries in the region.

Covid and Africa emergency, WHO: only result of blockade is to further harm countries

According to Ramaphosa, “the only result of the travel bans will be to further damage the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to the pandemic and thus recover”.

According to the WHO, the Omicron variant has accounted for the majority of the cases in South Africa’s most populous province, Gauteng, over the past two weeks.

However, the same strain has also been found in countries in other regions of the world, including Europe.

Covid, the director general of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, also spoke on the issue of travel bans in Africa

“The Omicron variant is a reflection of prolonged injustice on vaccines,” the official denounced on Twitter.

“The longer we take to ensure vaccine equality, the more we will allow Covid-19 to circulate, mutate and potentially become even more dangerous.”

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