Ban passengers from Omicron-infected countries, limit gatherings: National committee
The National Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) on Covid-19 today recommended banning travellers from the countries, where new coronavirus variant Omicron has been detected.
The committee in a meeting today made a set of recommendations as governments worldwide have begun pulling down the shutters to contain the new Omicron variant.
Travellers having record of visiting the Omicron infected countries will have to stay in 14-day institutional quarantine upon arrival in Bangladesh. They must be isolated if test positive for Covid-19, the committee said.
The committee also advised to strengthen the healthcare systems and limit gatherings at political, social and religious programmes.
Screening should be ensured at every port of entry, and health guidelines must be maintained at schools and colleges, NTAC said recommending free Covid test for all.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday Southeast Asian countries must scale up surveillance, strengthen health and social measures and enhance vaccination coverage as several countries across the world rushed to contain omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus that has the potential to be more resistant to vaccines.
Global authorities reacted with alarm to the variant detected in South Africa, with the EU and Britain among those tightening border controls as researchers sought to find out if the mutation was vaccine-resistant.
Several countries are scrambling to contain the spread of omicron and have banned flights from south African countries even as stock markets and oil prices plunged on fears surrounding the variant, potentially dealing a heavy blow to the global economic recovery.
Omicron Covid variant: What do we know about risks and symptoms
Omicron, the recently-discovered variant of the coronavirus which was first detected in southern Africa, has been declared to be a variant of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO said on Friday that omicron, named after a letter in the Greek alphabet, was first reported to it from South Africa on 24 November and the first known confirmed infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November.
Scientists have said the omicron variant appears to have a high number of mutations — about 30 — in the coronavirus' spike protein, which could affect how easily it spreads to people.
South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has said that "currently no unusual symptoms have been reported following infection with the B.1.1.529 variant."
NICD also said that as with other infectious variants such as Delta, some of those infected with the omicron variant of the coronavirus are asymptomatic.
