France suspends all flights from Southern Africa due to new COVID-19 variant

France on Friday suspended flights arriving from the southern African region for 48 hours amid rising concern about a new COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa.

"France suspended flights arriving from the southern African region for 48 hours. The new variant has not yet been detected in France," France 24 reported citing Health Minister Olivier Veran.

A newly identified COVID-19 variant --- B.1.1.529 --- is causing an increase in new COVID-19 infections in South Africa.

This new variant, with a large number of spike protein mutations, has led the UK to impose a travel ban from some African countries. It has also been declared a Variant under Investigation (VuI) by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

"These are potentially biologically significant mutations which may change the behaviour of the virus with regards to vaccines, treatments, and transmissibility. More investigation is required," UK Health Security Agency said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a special meeting to discuss the new Covid variant.

"We don't know very much about this yet. What we do know is that this variant has a large number of mutations. And the concern is that when you have so many mutations, it can have an impact on how the virus behaves," Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's the technical lead on Covid-19, said in a briefing.

(ANI)