Amid the global scare over the new ‘Omicron’ variant of coronavirus, Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Wednesday urged the expatriates, especially those who are living in Africa, to avoid travel and stay in their respective workplaces.
 
“People coming from Africa must undergo a14-day quarantine. If 20,000 people from Africa come to the country at a time then it won’t be possible to put them under institutional quarantine,” he said.

Read: Govt decides to administer Covid booster dose to above-60 citizens
 
The minister came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after a programme at the auditorium of Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) in the city.
 
If anyone comes to Bangladesh he or she must show his or her Covid negative report done 48 hours before departure which was 72 hours earlier, he said.

If anyone fails to show Covid test report, then the travellers must stay in an institutional quarantine for 48 hours, he added.
 
The hotels which were used for institutional quarantine before have resumed their normal activities but now they have been requested to rearrange quarantine centers, said Maleque.
 
Omicron has spread in different parts of Africa and the new variant has been detected in some European countries, including the UK.

Read: Omicron: DGHS recommends enforcement of 15 instructions
 
The World Health Organization warned Monday that the global risk from the omicron variant is “very high” based on the early evidence, saying the mutated coronavirus could lead to surges with “severe consequences.”
 
The assessment from the UN health agency, contained in a technical paper issued to member states, amounted to WHO’s strongest, most explicit warning yet about the new version that was first identified days ago by researchers in South Africa, reports AP.