The United Kingdom has announced a temporary suspension of issuing visitor visas in Nigeria and other African countries on the red list.
This was made known in a statement by the British High Commissioner on Sunday.
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“To support the UK Government’s aim to protect public health from COVID-19 and associated variants of concern (VOC), UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) will pause making decisions on visitor visa applications in all red list countries, including Nigeria, until travel restrictions are lifted,” the statement said.
This comes after Nigeria was placed on the UK’s red list over growing concerns of the recently identified COVID-19 Omicron variant.
“You cannot travel to the UK if you’ve been in a red list country in the previous 10 days unless you are a British or Irish national, have residence rights in the UK,” the commission had said on Sunday.
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According to People’s Gazette, the UK, on Sunday reportedly announced Nigeria’s addition to the “red list”. The UK also announced new travel restrictions expected to take effect from Tuesday.
According to the UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid these restrictions include out-bound passengers needing to provide either valid evidence of full vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative PCR test result within 48 hours of departure.
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The suspension was a result of the new covid variant Omicron detected in Nigeria on December 1 adding Nigeria to the list of African countries on the red list. Although, North Africa countries have been placed on the list as the high-risk zone.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), the Omicron variant has now been detected in 38 countries since it was sequenced in South Africa and does appear to be more contagious than the Delta variant.
With Omicron ravaging the world at a speed Governments across the globe are placing restrictions on travellers to curb the spread of the virus.
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