Gabriela Baczynska and Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – The EU presidency announced Friday that the EU states had agreed to stop travel from South Africa following the discovery of a COVID-19 variant.

A committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa”, the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter (NYSE:).

According to Eric Mamer, spokesperson for the European Commission, restrictions will be in place for Botswana and Eswatini as well as Namibia, South Africa, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho.

A EU official stated that EU countries have been asked not to allow travel to these countries.

The new measures can be applied by any of the 27 EU member countries at their own discretion. Some countries have already implemented restrictions.

EU officials stated that there was no yet a decision regarding other countries located in the same region as China, Israel or Belgium where such cases had been detected.

Global alarm has been raised by the discovery of a new coronavirus type, first discovered in South Africa. Researchers now seek to discover if this virus is resistant to vaccines.

Marc Van Ranst (virologist) told Reuters it was more probable that the woman infected had been in Belgium and not traveled to Europe.

Although she had traveled to Egypt in November 2011, her symptoms began 11 days later when she returned from Belgium. She has not been vaccinated.

On Friday, Switzerland placed a 10-day quarantine on all travellers coming from Israel, Hong Kong and Belgium. It also imposed a negative screening for those traveling to the country.