Omicron COVID-19: Travel ban on southern African countries is stigmatisation, says AU
Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, says the travel ban on southern African countries, due to COVID-19 Omicron variant, it a form of stigmatisation against Africa. Mahamat said this while reacting to the travel ban on the Southern Africa countries at a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday. Mahamat, who spoke to journalists after the fifth UN-AU Annual Conference, described the travel ban as stigmatisation which could not be justified scientifically or on the grounds of reason logically.
The Chairperson, who addressed journalists in the company of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said both multilateral organisations had condemned the unfair measures. They are condemning a country (South Africa) for having been transparent because its experts have worked tirelessly to inform the international community of the emergence of new variants. It hasn't been scientifically proven that these types of measures are able to deal with this type of issue. It's clearly, as you say, an expression rather of a form of injustice. He thinks that he'll take up the terms used by the Secretary-General. It's immoral to condemn Africa in that way.
The Chairperson said as a world, a global world and face… and when facing an enemy like the virus, like COVID-19, humankind as a whole must go hand in hand to fight the virus because a man's life is man's life. According to him, with vaccines, with treatment, with debt service, with their will to allow African states to recover following the pandemic or during it, they saw the same type of treatment. Mahamat said they had not seen active dynamic solidarity from the international community as a whole and that is to be regretted, noting that they've seen it time and time again.
He said as he was saying to the Secretary-General, we need to be collectively outraged as leaders in the African Union and as the United Nations. Their message to the world as a whole is that they need to keep a cool head. They need to follow the well-being of humankind as a whole. There is need to genuinely demonstrate greater solidarity and justice. That's the very least can ask for, namely from leaders, political and social leaders. Similarly on Tuesday, Guterres had expressed deep concern over the restrictions imposed on travellers from southern African countries due to Omicron.
The UN chief said people of Africa should not be blamed for the immorally low level of vaccinations available in the continent. He said they should not be penalised for identifying and sharing crucial science and health information with the world on Omicron COVID-19 variant. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has listed Omicron as a "variant of concern" as a result of which countries around the world are now restricting travel from Southern Africa, where the new strain was first detected, and taking other new precautions. WHO says it could take several weeks to know if there are significant changes in transmissibility, severity or implications for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments.
