UK announced, on Thursday, that it will ban travelers from six African countries from entering the territory of the United Kingdom due to a new mutated variant of the Covid-19, which is likely to be more contagious than its predecessors.
"The Health Security Agency is studying the new variant. We must wait for more data about it, but as a precautionary measure, six African countries will be added from midnight to the red list of Covis-19 travel restrictions, and air traffic with those countries will be banned and British citizens returning from those countries will be quarantined." Said British Health Minister Sajid Javid.
Javid explained that the ban will include all flights from the six countries, which are South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
British health authorities have expressed great concern about a new variant of the Covid-19 that has recently spread in South Africa, suggesting that vaccines will be less effective against the mutated variant.
The new variant carries twice the number of mutations in the "delta" variant, among which are related to avoiding the immune response resulting from both previous infection and vaccination, as well as mutations associated with increased infection.