Travel to and from regions with known cases of the new Covid-19 variant B.1.1.529 to Malta will be temporarily banned from midnight on Saturday, Health Minister Chris Fearne announced on Twitter.

He explained that at the moment this includes South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and, Zimbabwe.

This new Covid-19 variant has been detected by South African scientists in small numbers. They said that the variant has an unusual costellation of mutations which are of concern, and could make it more transmissible.

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