The countries of the European Union agreed on Friday to suspend flights to seven countries in southern Africa due to the new South African variant of covid-19, European sources informed EFE.
These are South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Eswatini, the sources said.
In addition, the 27 agreed that European residents who come from those countries and who do have the right to enter the EU undergo testing and a period of quarantine, according to the Slovenian presidency of the EU.
The EU countries met after the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, asked them today to stop all flights to southern countries of that continent, affected by the new variant.
Von der Leyen made that request in a statement without questions in which he recalled that the contracts that the European Union has signed with vaccine manufacturers require them to "immediately" adapt their drugs to new variants.
"We take the news about the new highly mutated variant of covid-19 very seriously. We know that mutations could lead to the emergence of more worrisome variants of the virus, which could spread around the world in a few months. It is important that everyone in Europe let us act quickly, decisively and united, "he said.
"All air travel to these (affected) countries should be suspended until we clearly understand the danger posed by this new variant and travelers returning from these regions should respect strict quarantine rules," the German president also noted.
The president of the United States, Democrat Joe Biden, also made this decision after being suggested by his chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English).
The restrictions will not affect US citizens or US lawful permanent residents in those countries, although they will have to submit a negative COVID-19 test before flying to the US.
The White House said taking this measure as "an excess of caution" in the face of all the unknowns that still surround the new variant.
For its part, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) considered it "premature" to foresee whether it will be necessary to adapt the covid-19 vaccines "with a different composition" to face the new emerging variant of coronavirus, and stressed that the current Information on the functioning of this strain is "insufficient".
The Government of Belgium, headquarters of the community institutions, reported today that on November 22, a case of the new South African variant of covid-19 was detected in the country in an unvaccinated young adult woman, who developed symptoms eleven days later. traveling to Egypt through Turkey.
South Africa confirmed on Thursday the detection of this new variant of the coronavirus, identified as B.1.1.529, which has multiple mutations and which has aroused "concern" among specialists, although its impact has yet to be studied.
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