South Africa has complained that it is being “punished” for detecting a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, which the World Health Organisation has termed a “variant of concern” and is more transmissible than the dominant Delta strain, reports AFP.

The decision by a number of countries around the world to ban flights from southern Africa following the discovery of the variant “is akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker,” the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

“Excellent science should be applauded and not punished,” it said.