The UK will close its borders to travelers from South America and Portugal on Friday, as concerns over a new variant of Covid-19 that researchers believe has emerged in the Brazilian Amazon, a region it has struggled to cope with, with the disease.
The variant, which shares similarities with the highly infectious types identified in Britain and South Africa, was reported in Japan earlier this month among a group of travelers who had recently returned from the Amazon and was also responsible for a case of reinfection in the vast Brazilian state of Amazonas, the researchers said.
The UK Department of Transportation said on Thursday that it would refuse entry Friday morning to anyone who has traveled to or from South America and Portugal in the past 10 days. The ban also includes Panama and Cape Verde, a Portuguese-speaking African nation.
“The decision to ban travel from these destinations follows the discovery of a new coronavirus variant first identified in Brazil, which may have spread to countries with strong travel links to Brazil,” the department said on Thursday.
Infectious disease specialists in the Amazon have long feared that the hard-hit region could become a breeding ground for virus mutations, as the local health system is on the verge of collapse.