KIEV, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine tightened its border control measures on Friday to reduce the risk of importing the new COVID-19 Omicron variant, the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) of Ukraine said in a statement.
In particular, Ukraine has imposed a travel ban on foreign citizens and stateless persons, who visited certain African countries and stayed there for 7 days or more in the last 14 days, the statement said.
The ban applies to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi, according to the statement.
Separately, Yuri Lysyuk, head of the SBGS department for the organization of border control, said that soon the SBGS could require travelers who enter Ukraine from any country with the detected Omicron variant to self-quarantine.
The Omicron variant was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) by South Africa last week. So far, several European countries, as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, the United States and some other countries and regions have confirmed infections of the variant.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 3.4 million Ukrainians have been infected with the virus and 87,566 died of its complications. Enditem
