Omicron: Canadian Government Adds Nigeria, Two Other Countries To Travel Ban List 

The Canadian government has added Nigeria, Malawi and Egypt to the list of African countries from which it is banning travellers amid concerns about the spread of COVID-19’s Omicron variant.

“We are adding three countries to the list of these countries that we talked about last Friday, these are Malawi, Egypt and Nigeria,” Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was quoted as saying by Sputnik news agency.

Duclos added that all travellers coming from outside Canada, apart from the United States, would now be tested at Canadian airports for the novel coronavirus disease, regardless of vaccination status.

This came after the World Health Organization on Tuesday called for countries to keep calm and take “rational” measures in response to the new COVID variant, Omicron.

“We call on all member states to take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to countries, Al Jazeera reports.