European Union states have agreed to suspend temporarily travel to southern Africa after the detection of a new Covid-19 variant.
A committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the #emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa,” the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter.
An EU source told Reuters that the restrictions would apply to South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
It comes as a case of the new omicron Covid variant was identified in Belgium, with laboratories in the country increasing their vigilance to catch the potentially more transmissible strain.
The new strain was originally expected to be named nu after the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet, until the World Health Organisation confirmed the omicron moniker.
A patient returning from Egypt, via Turkey, contracted the variant of concern, according to the National Reference Laboratory, which sent a nationwide communication to raise urgency over passengers arriving from South Africa.
Two possible cases were analysed on Friday, with one identified as a delta variant and the other the new B.1.1.529 strain.
The infected patient was a young unvaccinated woman, who developed symptoms 11 days after going to Egypt, but has no links with South Africa or other high-risk countries.
Belgium is the first European country to detect cases, after the strain was found in South Africa, Hong Kong, Botswana and Israel.
In the UK, Sajid Javid confirmed there have been no cases of the new Covid variant detected in the UK.
The Health Secretary, speaking during an address to the Commons, said: “I want to reassure this House that there are no detected cases of this variant in the UK at this time, but this new variant is of huge international concern.”
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