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In actual fact, journey bans don’t clear up the issue—they simply postpone it, says Raghib Ali, an epidemiologist on the College of Cambridge, UK. Higher testing is a much more efficient measure.
“We want a balanced and proportional response. Which means no journey bans, however testing and quarantine for individuals coming from international locations the place omicron is circulating,” says Ali.
The journey bans might have one other detrimental knock-on impact: reducing South Africa off from the scientific provides it must do the genomic surveillance to check the influence of omicron in real-world settings. Tulio de Oliveira, a bioinformatician on the College of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa advised Nature: “By subsequent week, if nothing modifications, we are going to run out of sequencing reagents.”
The larger worry is that the lesson different international locations will be taught from the therapy of southern African international locations is that in case you detect a brand new variant, it’s finest to maintain it to your self.
“They see others getting penalized for recognizing a brand new variant, and that may put them off sharing the information we want. That’s not a theoretical risk, it’s very actual,” says Ali.
Omicron gained’t be the final variant of concern. When the subsequent one hits, we want international locations to share what they know as quickly as potential. Blanket journey bans put that openness at risk.
“Setting up journey bans that concentrate on Africa assaults world solidarity,” stated Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, in an announcement final week.
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