MIAMI, United States. – This past Monday, Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health announced new measures to reinforce controls with international travelers in light of the spread of Omicron, the new SARS-COVID-19 variant.
The ministry announced that travelers from South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Malawi and Eswatini, must present a full vaccination record and a negative PCR-RT test administered no more than 72 hours prior to traveling.
Also, travelers from these countries “will be administered a PCR-RT SARS-CoV-2”; “will be obligated to quarantine for seven days in a hotel set aside for that purpose, costs of lodging and transportation to be paid by the travelers.”
MINSAP’s notification also states that travelers “will have blood samples taken for PCR testing against SARS-CoV-2 on the sixth day, and, should it test negative, the passenger will be discharged from quarantine on the seventh day.”
These measures – presentation of full vaccination record, negative result of PCR-RT test, and submitting to another PCR-RT test upon arrival in the island – will also be applied to travelers from Belgium, Israel, Hong Kong, Egypt, Turkey and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, to wit: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Djibouti and Zambia.
MINSAP indicated that these measures will come into effect starting Saturday, December 4th.
The spread of Omicron has set off global alerts, forcing countries such as Israel and Japan to decree new border closings.
BBC World has notified that initial information about the new variant “seems to show greater contagiousness and a greater risk of reinfection than other known coronavirus variants due to its large number of mutations.”
In spite of international alarm, scientists advise that more information is needed about the variant in order to reach definitive conclusions.
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