The United Kingdom, on Tuesday, reviewed the travel ban imposed on Nigeria and 10 other countries over the Omicron COVID variant.
UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, who announced this while briefing the British Parliament told the lawmakers that England would remove all 11 countries from red list from 04:00 GMT on Wednesday.
Javid argued that the travel red list for countries was no longer effective in checking the spread of new variant.
“So I can announce today that whilst we’ll maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow,” he said.
Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe are currently on the list.
It has, however, since emerged the variant is already being widely transmitted in the UK.
Similarly, UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, announced on Twitter plans by the British government to lift the ban with effect from Wednesday.
Shapps tweeted, “From 4am on Weds 15 Dec, ALL 11 countries will be removed from England’s travel red. All current TESTING measures remain in place & will be reviewed in the first week of January.
“As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health.”