The Department for International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in a press release urged world leaders to not implement “knee-jerk” coverage selections in response to Omicron kind detections.
The newest spherical of journey restrictions is “like punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and ability to rapidly detect new variants. The excellent science should be appreciated and not punished,” it stated.
DIRCO reported that new variants had been additionally detected in different international locations and that “each of those cases had no recent association with southern Africa”.
However, “the response of those countries is completely different to the cases in southern Africa,” it stated.
DIRCO stated its officers are in discussions with international locations which have banned journey to and from South Africa to stop the continuation of the restrictions.
Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor additionally slammed the UK and different international locations for his or her transfer to impose journey restrictions on South Africa.
“While we respect the right of all countries to take the necessary precautionary measures to protect their citizens, we need to remember that this pandemic requires cooperation and sharing of expertise,” she stated.
“Our immediate concern is that these restrictions are hurting families, the travel and tourism industries and businesses,” Pandor stated.
Along with South Africa, its neighboring states – Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi, Zambia and Angola – have additionally been slapped with journey restrictions, crippling their economies which are largely tourism-oriented. are depending on.
Earlier, Health Minister Joe Fahla had termed the journey restrictions on South Africa as “draconian” and “misguided”.
The new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.1.529, first detected in South Africa this week, was on Friday designated because the “Version of Concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO), which named it “Omicron”. .
A “type of concern” is the WHO’s high class of worrying COVID-19 variants.
Countries world wide are at the moment speeding to impose journey restrictions and sanctions on southern African international locations in an effort to cease the unfold of omicrons.
European international locations, together with the UK, have banned journey to South Africa and the neighboring international locations of Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, in addition to Lesotho and Eswatini (previously Swaziland), each of that are landlocked inside South Africa.
Other international locations embody Mauritius, Israel, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, USA, Canada and the Netherlands.
Several different international locations adopted swimsuit, most of them indicating that solely their very own residents could be allowed to return, topic to a quarantine interval.
In New Delhi, the Indian authorities requested all states and union territories to conduct rigorous screening and testing of all worldwide vacationers arriving or departing from South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana, the place the brand new variant has been detected.
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
