Following the latest development, all international arrivals to the UK will now be required to take pre-departure COVID-19 tests, the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, said on Saturday.
UK citizens and residents will be able to enter the country from Nigeria but they will have to pay to stay in a quarantine for 10 days, Sky reports.
The change starts from 4:00am on Monday, according to Javid.
“Nigeria is second only to South Africa for cases linked to Omicron,” he said.
He added that there are “27 cases already in England and that’s growing”.
Javid also said the measures are “hugely unfortunate” for people who already had travel plans, but insisted that they would be “temporary”.
“We want to remove them as soon as we possibly can,” he added, saying that “vaccines remain our first line of defence”.
The new Coronavirus variant is said to have emanates from Southern Africa region.
Credit: SaharaReporters