(Abidjan) South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denounced Thursday in Abidjan “any form of health apartheid” in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular its Omicron variant initially detected by his country which has since been partly isolated from the rest of the world.
“While we respect the right of every country to take action to protect its people, the global and lasting cooperation we need to end the pandemic requires that we be guided by science,” said Ramaphosa after a meeting with his Ivorian counterpart Alassane Ouattara.
South Africa is “firmly opposed to any form of health apartheid in the fight against the pandemic,” he added.
President Ramaphosa said he was with his Ivorian counterpart “concerned that Africa and the rest of the developing world continue to fight (against the pandemic) by having limited access to the vaccines so necessary to save lives”.
He again judged “regrettable, unfair and contrary to science” the travel ban in South Africa and southern Africa imposed by a large number of countries, calling on them to “urgently” review their position.
He further considered that this decision to isolate his country was “a slap in the face of African expertise and excellence”, since it was “our own scientists who first detected the Omicron variant”.
Mr. Ramaphosa thanked Alassane Ouattara for having shown “solidarity” by allowing his state visit to Côte d’Ivoire – the first by a South African president since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1992-could be held.
“I salute the effective measures you have taken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as for your commitment to vaccination”, for his part declared President Ouattara.
He expressed his “solidarity with the government and the people of South Africa for this difficult period marked by the appearance of the new Omicron variant and the incomprehension that we have noted in some countries”.
In South Africa, where the identification of the Omicron variant was announced last week, and where less than a quarter of the population is vaccinated, the authorities described in Parliament an “exponential” spread of the virus. The new variant, clearly very contagious, is already dominant.
The Omicron variant has so far been reported in four African countries (South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana).