Foreign Minister Abdul Momen on Thursday said those who are returning from South Africa will not get boarding passes if they are not fully vaccinated and fail to show Covid negative report. “Biman doesn’t operate flights to Africa, if any flight of other airlines comes here the travellers won’t get boarding passes unless they are fully vaccinated and have Covid negative certificate,” he said. “They’ll have to stay in a 14-day institutional quarantine upon arrival,“ said the minister while talking to reporters over the Omicron scare after attending a programme at Salutika in Sylhet. Momen said all the missions have been asked to discourage Bangladeshis staying in Africa and the adjacent countries not to travel to Bangladesh now. “However, Bangladesh is ready to face the situation,” he added. Read: Bangladesh removed from India’s "red list": FMCity Mayor Ariful Haq Chowdhury, among others, attended the programme. Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Wednesday urged the expatriates, especially those 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. Omicron has spread in different parts of Africa and the new variant has been detected in some European countries, including the UK. Read: Bangladesh seeks US investment in diversified areas The World Health Organization (WHO) 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.  

Amid a global alarm over the new Omicron variant of Covid, authorities in Brahmanbaria have decided to hang red flags outside the houses of seven South Africa returnees. The decision was taken at an emergency meeting of the Corona Prevention Committee on Monday evening, chaired by district commissioner Hayat-Ud-Doula-Khan. Also read: Omicron: DGHS recommends enforcement of 15 instructions The committee also issued directions to the Akhaura land port authorities for ensuring strict screening of people entering the country. The committee also decided to initiate immediate steps to vaccinate the two lakh people waiting for the Covid shots. Recently, three residents of Kasba upazila, two of Sadar upazila, and one each from Bancharampur and Nabinagar upazilas in Brahmanbaria district returned from South Africa, where the new variant is said to have originated. Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world raced Friday to contain the new coronavirus variant potentially more dangerous than the one that has fuelled relentless waves of infection on nearly every continent. Also read: NTAC recommends travel ban to contain new variant Omicron A World Health Organization panel named the variant 'Omicron' and classified it as a highly transmissible virus of concern, the same category that includes the predominant Delta variant, which is still a scourge driving higher cases of sickness and death in Europe and parts of the US.