South Africa reported that new forms have been discovered in other parts of the world.
Johannesburg, South Africa:
South Africa complained on Saturday that it was being “punished” for detecting a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, which the World Health Organization has called “a sort of concern” and more so than the major delta strain. is transmitted.
The foreign ministry said the decision to ban flights from southern Africa following the discovery of the variant by several countries around the world was “punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and ability to detect new variants.” a statement.
“Excellent science should be appreciated and not punished,” it said.
The ministry reported that new forms have been discovered in other parts of the world.
“Each of those cases has no recent connection with southern Africa, but the response from those countries is quite different to the cases in southern Africa,” it said.
Israel and Belgium announced after South Africa had detected cases of Omicron.
The government stressed that South Africa’s “ability to test and its vaccination programme, backed by a world-class scientific community, should give our global partners the comfort we are doing as well as they are doing in managing the pandemic.” are”.
With more than 2.95 million cases and 89,783 deaths, South Africa is the country most affected by the pandemic in Africa.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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