Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has dismissed calls to ban flights from the UK in light of a new strain of coronavirus reported in the last few weeks.
In a statement to the press while speaking in his hometown of Mukurwe-ini on Wednesday, the CS said that there is no need to take such a drastic move.
Kagwe held that in light of the reports of a new strain of coronavirus, European countries, Britain included have embarked on massive screening for all citizens in those countries.
“We as a country do not see any need to close our airspace due to the new variant, in fact a country such as Britain is doing serious screening so we are not in danger as a country,” Kagwe said in Mukurweini during the 30th anniversary of Wakulima Dairy according to Capital FM.
However, the Health CS spoke against affectionate forms of greetings such as hugging saying Kenya is not out of the woods yet especially during the Christmas season when there is a lot of movement.
“As a country, we have left Kenyans to control themselves during this festival season, there were suggestions that we ban inter-county travel, however, we saw it fit to leave Kenyans to exercise their own control but we will enforce protocols,” said Kagwe.
With reports of a new COVID-19 strain in Britain, a host of countries in Europe have banned flights to and from London as a safety precaution.
So far, more than 20 countries around the world have banned inbound and outbound flights to Great Britain over the new strain.
Among them is France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria among others which have banned flights from Britain.
Sudan banned flights from the UK on December 23 for the next 14 days.
