The United Kingdom has officially announced plans to review the inclusion of Nigeria and 10 other countries on its travel red list.
This is as UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, who addressed Members of Parliament on Tuesday called for the suspension of the measure taken on 11 countries on the red list.
Javid said the 11 countries will be removed from the country’s travel red list from 4am on Wednesday.
The Secretary of State explained that the red list was reintroduced as a precaution after the emergence of the Omicron variant, adding that the new variant has now spread across the world hence no need for the initial measure.
“Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad.
“Whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow morning,” Javid told the parliament.
Recall that the British government had on December 4 placed Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe on its travel ban following the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
