Staff Reporter.
The Department of Health confirmed that the United Kingdom would consider the data provided by South African government scientists in their next review of its red list within 14 days.
This comes after the local government experts had a meeting with their UK counterparts over the red list of high-risk countries.
The island country has tighter travel restrictions in place to reduce the introduction and transmission of new variants of COVID-19 from countries that the UK government says should not be visited “except in the most extreme of circumstances”.
This means that travellers returning to the UK from South Africa must spend 10 days in quarantine at their own expense, even though they are vaccinated.
According to the department, the talks also included the latest trends around COVID-19, testing strategies and the prevalence and risk posed to our vaccination programmes by variants of concern.
The meeting was set up by the UK High Commission and the South African government to ensure the most up-to-date and accurate sharing of information.
“The insights provided will feed into the next review of UK border measures, which is due to take place within the next fortnight,” the statement read.
The UK and local experts also discussed the recognition of each other’s vaccine certificates.
“The UK side explained that, following some initial pilots, it was now seeking to extend its recognition of vaccine certificates around the world as rapidly as possible.”
According to the department’s statement, the UK expressed its willingness to take forward discussions with the SA government on this matter.
Both governments said they support and recognise the importance of vaccination as a way out of the pandemic.
“The UK expressed its gratitude to SA experts for their willingness to share both data and expertise.”
Meanwhile both countries will today also co-host the inaugural Information Communication Technology (ICT) Cyber Dialogue.
According to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), the establishment of this discussion arises from the meeting held in January 2020, where issues of particular interest for South Africa were discussed, including areas on connectivity and access, combatting cybercrime, emerging technologies, and peace and security.
It is envisaged that the dialogue will focus on four thematic areas, namely, the threat of information exchange, sustainability and capacity building, standards and regulation and cyber-governance.
The department said the UK has established cyber offices staffed by technical and policy officers in various missions around the world.
“The Africa Cyber Network will be supported by UK cyber officials in Abuja, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa, which forms the corps of their African Cyber Network,” the department said.