South Africa’s president Cyril Ramphosa has condemned travel bans against his country over the new coronavirus variant Omicron. The president said that he is 

deeply disappointed by the sudden reaction by several countries targeting South Africa and its neighbours, which is unjustified. Ramphosa has however called for the bans to be urgently lifted.  Many countries, including the UK, US, Israel, Italy and several other countries in Europe had imposed travel bans from African nations in wake of rising detection and rising cases of Omicron variant infection. 

Omicron variant, which has been  classed as a “variant of concern” by the WHO as the early evidence suggests it has a higher re-infection risk. The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month.