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Tag: Omicron

  • Omicron: President Cyril Ramaphosa to visit Nigeria, three other African countries this week as other nations shut doors against South Africa

    Omicron: President Cyril Ramaphosa to visit Nigeria, three other African countries this week as other nations shut doors against South Africa

    President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to conduct state visits to Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal this week hoping to talk about trade and economic recovery on the continent post-Covid-19.

    It is somewhat ironic therefore that this week’s trip was threatened by the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant of concern, Omicron, which led to several countries shutting their borders to flights from southern Africa.

    Before Ramaphosa’s departure for Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday morning, International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor thanked the Nigerian Government for receiving her delegation.

    “Thank you for being brave enough to allow us in,” she told officials at the Nigeria-SA Bi-National Commission in Abuja.

    “We are truly pleased to be with close friends and family in this great country of Nigeria. We are heartened by the continuing commitment to African solidarity shown by Nigeria towards southern Africa when many of the world treat our citizens as unwelcome pariahs.”

    She said it was reminiscent of the solidarity Nigeria showed South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle. Nigeria was the first country to provide direct financial aid to the ANC, starting in the 1960s. Civil servants famously gave 2% of their income to a relief fund then dubbed the “Mandela Tax”.

    Relations since the advent of democracy haven’t always been that smooth, with diplomatic spats and xenophobia often getting in the way.

    Ramaphosa, who as the African Union Champion for the Covid-19 Response has advocated vaccine equity for African countries, now also wants to help lead the economic recovery. He is hoping that “economic diplomacy” could help focus African countries on a common goal and fuel development without, say, letting uncomfortable conversations over freedom of expression (Twitter is blocked in Nigeria, for example) or human rights get in the way of this.

    Ramaphosa, in his weekly newsletter obtained by TheNewsGuru.com, TNG on Monday, said the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, which kicked in on 1 January, “presents immense opportunity for the export of South African goods and services into the continent”. (He is clearly optimistic, possibly because he’s never had to cough up R4,500 for an ordinary business visa to Nigeria or faced the Ghanaian visa official at a time of bad blood between the two countries because of a football war of words over the awarding of a deciding penalty).

    The United Nations has estimated that the market created by the AfCFTA comprises about 1.3 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of $3.4-trillion.

    This month a number of African leaders, including President Buhari, attended the Intra-African Trade Fair in Durban as part of an effort to promote greater trade between South Africa and others on the continent — about $36-billion in deals were concluded there. Nigeria was one of the last countries to sign the AfCFTA agreement due to fears by manufacturers that the agreement would damage their businesses.

    During the series of state visits this week, Ramaphosa, who will be accompanied by a business delegation, said leaders “will look at how to leverage the opportunities presented by the AfCFTA to expand the footprint of South African companies into the continent and how we can better support those businesses already operating in other African countries”.

    Covid-19 has, however, derailed some of the plans.

    Ramaphosa wrote that there were more than 200 South African companies doing business in Ghana, with large-scale projects culminating in more than $1-billion in capital investment. Two South African banks, Investec and Rand Merchant Bank, have been involved in financing mass infrastructure projects there.

    In Senegal, “we will discuss how to facilitate greater trade and investment between our two countries”, Ramaphosa wrote. South African companies there operate in the energy and wildlife tourism sectors, among other interests, and a number of South African companies have expressed interest in entering the infrastructure construction space, Ramaphosa wrote.

    “For far too long, we African countries have trained our gaze on trade and investment opportunities in markets beyond the continent such as Europe, Asia and North America.”

    He said the visits would hopefully strengthen fraternal ties, but also “translate into new opportunities for South African businesses, new markets for our products and the creation of employment for our people”.

  • Omicron: Indonesia bans arrivals from Nigeria, seven other African countries

    Omicron: Indonesia bans arrivals from Nigeria, seven other African countries

    The government of Indonesia says it will ban the entry of travellers who have been in eight African countries, including Nigeria, and extend quarantine times for all arrivals to curb the spread of the Omicron variant, officials have said.

    The ban extends to people who have been in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini or Nigeria in the past 14 days.

    Delegates attending G20 meetings, which Indonesia chairs, will not be affected.

    First discovered in South Africa, Omicron has since been recorded in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Botswana, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy and the United Kingdom.

    The discovery of Omicron, dubbed a “variant of concern” on Friday by the World Health Organization, sparked worries that it could resist vaccines and prolong the nearly two-year COVID pandemic.

    Omicron is potentially more contagious than previous variants, but experts do not know yet if it will cause more or less severe COVID-19.

    Countries have imposed a wave of travel bans or curbs on southern Africa. In the most far-reaching effort to keep the variant at bay, Israel announced late on Saturday it would ban the entry of all foreigners and reintroduce counterterrorism phone-tracking technology to contain the spread of the variant.

  • Omicron: Stop labeling, penalizing Africa for new COVID-19 variants, AfDB President, Adesina blasts world leaders

    Omicron: Stop labeling, penalizing Africa for new COVID-19 variants, AfDB President, Adesina blasts world leaders

    African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina yesterday advised world leaders not to label or penalise African nations for the new COVID-19 variants and mutations.

    Adesina, one of the strong advocates of equity in vaccine distribution, said this in a series of tweets yesterday in the wake of the new COVID-19 variant spreading and causing panic.

    He said Africa is not the source of the COVID-19 pandemic and should not be penalised for new variants, urging for global justice, equity, and fairness in access to vaccines.

    The AfDB boss tweeted: “Africa should not be labelled and penalized for COVID-19 variants and mutations that occur randomly elsewhere in the world. Africa is not the source of COVID-19.

    “There must be global justice, equity & fairness in access to vaccines. Global vaccine supply system has underserved Africa. Protecting one’s home alone in the midst of a forest fire does not work. Put out the forest fire.

    “Africa must accelerate the manufacturing of its own vaccines & set up its own ‘healthcare security defence system’. Africa must no longer outsource health security of its 1.8 billion people to the benevolence of others.”

  • FG says new COVID-19 variant, ‘Omicron’ not in Nigeria, issues travel advisory

    FG says new COVID-19 variant, ‘Omicron’ not in Nigeria, issues travel advisory

    The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Sunday stated that the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, is not in the country.

    It stated that, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, it is monitoring emerging evidence on the new variant and its implication to inform the country’s response to the pandemic.

    Urging Nigerians to ensure strict adherence to the proven public health and social measures in place, the NCDC appealed to business owners, religious leaders and people in authority to take responsibility by ensuring people in their premises wear masks and adhere to physical distancing.

    A statement by the NCDC reads: “The Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) are aware of reports of a new COVID-19 variant — the B.1.1.529 lineage. This SARS-CoV-2 variant has now been designated a variant of concern (VOC) and named; Omicron by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as advised by the independent Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE).

    “While this variant has so far NOT been detected in Nigeria, a number of cases have now been reported in the UK, Israel, Botswana, Hong-Kong, Germany, Belgium, Italy and counting. However, no deaths have been attributed to this new variant yet. A total of 126 genomes of this variant have been detected globally and published on GISAID, (GISAID is a global mechanism for sharing sequencing data).

    “Given the high number of mutations present in this Omicron variant and the exponential rise in COVID-19 cases observed in South Africa, this virus is considered highly transmissible and may also present an increased risk of reinfection compared to other VOCs.

    “However, the fears about its ability to evade protective immune responses and/or its being vaccine resistant are only theoretical so far. This virus can still be detected with existing Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests. The WHO and researchers across the world are working at speed to gain understanding of the likely impact of this variant on the severity of COVID-19 and on the potency of existing vaccines and therapeutics.

    “The NCDC continues to ensure daily review of surveillance data and uses this to inform public health decision making. Therefore, we urge all States to ensure that sample collection and testing are accessible, so that travellers, people with symptoms or who have been exposed to COVID-19 cases get tested promptly.”

  • WHO renames new COVID-19 variant

    WHO renames new COVID-19 variant

    The World Health Organization on Friday declared the recently-discovered B.1.1.529 strain of Covid-19 to be a variant of concern, renaming it Omicron.

    “Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in Covid-19 epidemiology… the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a variant of concern, named Omicron,” the UN health agency said in a statement.

    Meanwhile, EU officials holding an emergency meeting over the variant agreed on Friday to urge all 27 nations in the bloc to restrict travel from that region.

    “Member States agreed to introduce rapidly restrictions on all travel into the EU from seven countries in the Southern Africa region: Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe,” European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer tweeted.

    The measure was only a recommendation to suspend flights from those African nations.

    “This is not a formal decision but a recommendation. It is up to each member state to take its own decisions,” an EU official said.

    Many EU member states had already gone ahead with flight suspensions from some or all of the seven African countries. Others were expected to follow suit over coming days.

    An EU official said the diplomats and officials meeting in Brussels under the EU’s Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) mechanism opted to emphasise “restrictions” over travel suspensions.

    That is because EU citizens and residents were allowed to return to their home countries — though will likely face PCR tests and quarantine on arrival.

    Non-EU citizens and residents would be barred from travelling into the EU under the agreed recommendation.

    The current Slovenian presidency of the European Union tweeted that the IPCR meeting agreed to activate an “emergency brake” allowing member states to rapidly change travel criteria to keep pace with changes brought on by Covid.

    The presidency “called upon members to test and quarantine all incoming passengers” in its tweet.

    There was no immediate fuller statement giving details, so it was not clear whether that meant passengers from the seven African countries, or all passengers arriving in the EU regardless of point of origin.