Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe. FILE PHOTO | NMG Kenya has opted not to join dozens of countries that have either banned inbound flights or cut all passenger air travel due to a highly infectious new coronavirus strain.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said Tuesday that Kenya has instead issued stricter measures for allowing in travellers from the UK over banning flights.
More than 53 countries across five continents had by December 22 shut their doors to UK travellers over the discovery of the mutant coronavirus strain.
“We have very strict travel measures with the UK which the US and the Europeans did not have. We are carefully observing every passenger travelling from there,” said Mr Kagwe.
Countries, mainly from Europe suspended travel from Britain after the UK said it had discovered mutated variant of the novel coronavirus, which could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.
Mr Kagwe reckons that Kenya needed additional recommendations from institutions like the World Health Organisation (WHO) before taking steps such as flight bans.
“We will, therefore, make decisions based on scientific advice as well as any additional advice from WHO. We are not part of EU (European Union),” he added.
Britain is one of Kenya’s main trading partners and last year accounted for the fourth largest arrivals through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with 181,400 visitors.
Boris Johnson, the premier, put London and parts of the South East and East of England on a two-week Christmas lockdown, with nearly 18 million people in a new Tier 4.
Dozens of nations outside Europe have also blocked flights from Britain. They include Canada, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and Argentina.
But some countries such as France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, German, Ireland and China have in recent days relaxed these travel restrictions from the UK.The discovery of the new strain, just months before vaccines are expected to be widely available, sowed a fresh wave of panic in a pandemic that has killed about 1.7 million people worldwide and more than 67,000 in Britain.In Kenya, 96,139 have tested positive and it had killed 1,665 by yesterday.Scientists say there’s no evidence that vaccines being deployed in the UK – made by Pfizer and BioNTech – or other Covid-19 shots in development will not protect against this variant, known as the B.1.1.7.National carrier Kenya Airways would have frozen its flights to and from Heathrow International Airport in London had Kenya restricted UK travel.This would have been a big blow […]