Germany, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland have all banned flights to and from South Africa.
This is coming after news of South Africa’s discovery of a highly infectious new variant of the SARS-COV-2 was announced by the government.
The new mutation is believed to be responsible for the surge in infections.
Germany announced that it won’t allow travelling to and from the United Kingdom and South Africa in a bid to nip the new strain in the bud and limit the spread of the virus.
More countries are expected to impose bans with the rainbow nation’s neighbours, Botswana, Lesotho and others yet to make a decision.
Read: South Africa Finds New Coronavirus Strain Driving The Second Wave
South Africa has the highest number of coronavirus cases in Africa at over 900,000 with close to 25,000 deaths recorded in the country.
The South African government had on Sunday announced that it found a new mutation and named it 501.V2 Variant of the virus. It is believed to be responsible for the high number of cases.
Researchers have said the new variant, although highly infectious, is not as deadly as the first strain.