Emirates has suspended all flights to three African nations over the Omicron outbreak.
An Emirates spokesperson told AirlineRatings.com: “Emirates is temporarily suspending passenger operations to and from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, from 27 November 2021 until further notice, due to the evolving COVID-19 situation.
“The health and safety of our customers and our people is always our top priority. We continue to monitor the situation, take advice and directives from the relevant health and government authorities, and hope to restore services as soon as the situation allows us to.
“We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to affected customers whom our teams are working hard to contact and assist. We urge passengers to check emirates.com for the latest flight information and travel requirements.”
The World Health Organization announced Friday that its Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) assessed the SARS-CoV-2 variant: B.1.1.529. and found that this variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.
It said that “preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs. The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa.”
The new variant has been named Omicron.
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