The African Union on Saturday cautioned countries across the world against imposing quick travel bans on travellers from the continent, in the wake of a new variant of the Covid-19 virus said to be more infectious.
Dr John Nkengasong, the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said the history of the pandemic had indicated travel bans served little purpose in managing the spread of the virus.
Instead, the continental body was encouraging more surveillance and data sharing between countries, in addition to increased vaccination of the “high-risk” populations.
“Africa CDC strongly discourages the imposition of travel ban for people originating from countries that have reported this variant. In fact, over the duration of this pandemic, we have observed that imposing bans on travellers from countries where a new variant is reported has not…