South Africa claimed on Saturday that it was being “punished” for discovering a new Covid-19 variety called Omicron by the World Health Organization, which is more transmissible than the prevailing Delta strain. Following the identification of the mutation, a number of nations around the world decided to prohibit flights from southern Africa, which the foreign affairs ministry described as “equivalent to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and capacity to detect new variants faster.”
It stated, “Excellent science should be applauded, not punished.”
New varieties have been detected in various parts of the world, according to the government.
“Each of those situations has no recent ties to Southern Africa,” it stated, “yet the attitude to those countries is radically different from those in Southern Africa.” Following South Africa, Israel and Belgium announced that they had discovered Omicron cases as well.
South Africa’s “ability to test and its ramped-up vaccination campaign, backed by a world-class scientific community,” according to the government, “should give our global partners the comfort that we are doing as well as they are in managing the pandemic.” South Africa is the worst-affected country in Africa, with almost 2.95 million cases and 89,783 deaths.
