Brazil regulator recommends travel ban over Covid variant

BRASÍLIA: Brazil’s national health agency recommended Friday the government bar foreign travellers arriving from six southern African countries over a new Covid-19 variant detected in the region.

“Considering the epidemiological impact the new variant could have on the global situation, we recommend, as a preventive and precautionary measure, the immediate suspension of all flights from” six states, health agency Anvisa said in a technical note.

The countries specified were South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe – though Brazil currently has no direct flights from any of those states.

The agency also recommended “the temporary suspension of authorisation to disembark in Brazil for foreign travellers who have transited through those countries in the past 14 days,” and a quarantine for Brazilian nationals returning from the region.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s government must now decide whether to implement the recommendations.

Brazil has been hit hard by Covid-19, with more than 600,000 deaths – second only to the US.

— AFP photo File photo shows the view of the boarding area at the Galeao international airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil amid the Covid-19 pandemic.