No government call yet on India-linked travel ban
THE government has yet to determine whether travelling linked to India should be banned, despite outcries from concerned citizens about increasing Covid-19 cases in the South Asian country.
The Health Department has moved to reassure citizens that there are no direct flights from India to South Africa.
This after South Africans messaged the government calling for flights from the country to be banned.
Covid-19 cases have been increasing alarmingly in India over the past few weeks. As a result, countries such as the US and the UK have banned any form of travel from the country.
It is suspected that a variant of the coronavirus, B.1.617, is circulating in India and may be behind the second wave of the pandemic.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said health-care agencies were on high alert, and the variant first identified in India had not been found in the country.
He added that the Ministerial Advisory Committee had been asked to advise the department on the management of travellers from countries whose increasing Covid-19 cases were being driven by variants.
“Their advice will assist us to determine the next steps forward, of which the government will announce in due course. For now, we ask for calm to prevail,” Mkhize said.
Dr Aslam Dasoo, from the Progressive Health Forum, said: “The knee-jerk reaction of fear is not called for at this point. People should calm down. The minister is correct.”
He said banning flights or travel from India would be difficult because the country had loose borders. Another issue was that it had yet to be determined whether the variant first identified in India was driving an increase in cases in that country.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has labelled the B.1.617 variant as a category of interest, and further investigations had to be conducted to determine how infectious it is.
Dasoo said: “To the extent that we have screening capabilities, we should deploy those. On a broader level, the variant first identified in India has been designated by the WHO as a variant of interest. The variants found in South Africa and the UK are variants of concern. There is a distinction. Variants of concern have been shown to increase transmission and infection in some cases, but variants of interests are still under investigation,” he said.
Dasoo indicated that the increase in cases in India was a matter of concern and was a reminder that the pandemic remained a worry.
Last week, the WHO said the world had seen as many Covid-19 cases reported than it had in the first five months of the pandemic last year, Dasoo said.
University of Cape Town organic chemistry Professor Kelly Chibale said: “What has happened in India is a reminder we should not let our guard down. The guard was let down in India. There can be fatigue that we can lose the momentum to continue with surveillance. All it can take is a new variant, virus strain. Let us not let our guard down. Let’s keep searching, testing.”
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases said it was keeping an eye on the B.1.617 coronavirus variant.