Kenya president makes plea against Covid travel bans

By Ferdinand Omondi

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has asked countries around the globe not to lock Africa out of international travel on account of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19.

The US, UK, Israel and the 27 member states of the European Union are among those who've enforced travel bans mostly targeted at southern African countries.

South Africa announced discovery of the new, highly infectious virus strain last week, although it has also been detected across Europe - and Dutch authorities now believe it was already present in their country when South Africa first alerted the World Health Organization.

President Kenyatta made the comments in what could be his last state of the nation address before parliament ahead of next year’s general election in Kenya.

He said African countries had made great progress in tackling coronavirus since it was first detected, and added the new Omicron variant would not be defeated by locking off or shutting down the continent.

President Kenyatta noted that Kenya for instance had vaccinated more than seven million people, about 13% of the population, against a set target of 10 million by December.

He also said that Kenya had greatly improved the country’s health infrastructure since March last year when Covid-19 was declared a pandemic.

This article originally appeared in BBC News.

Photo: AFP