UK Reverses Nigeria, Others, Travel Ban, Cancels Quarantine
The United Kingdom has revealed that it will lift the travel ban on Nigeria and 10 other African countries effective from 4am on Wednesday, today.
The UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, who said this while addressing the British parliament on Tuesday, said that travel ban was less effective in preventing transmission of Omicron variant of COVID-19 from abroad.
The move brewed anger from Nigeria and other African countries, with the United Nations describing the ban on non-UK residents entering England as “travel apartheid.”
Recall that the British government had on thr 4th of December placed Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe on its travel ban after the outbreak of the Omicront variant of COVID-19.
It said the red list began as a precaution after the emergence of the Omicron variant.
“Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad,” the UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid told the parliament on Tuesday.
He added, “Whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow morning.”
Meanwhile, there were indications on Tuesday that Nigerians were not accepting booster jabs.
On Monday, the Executive Secretary of the National Health Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, revealed that just 496 persons had gotten booster shots between Friday and Monday, which is an average of 124 daily.
