BRUSSELS - EU health ministers discussed measures to try to halt the spread of the Omicron variant on Tuesday, with the Netherlands calling for negative tests for incoming travellers from outside the bloc and France urging tests even for those arriving from EU states.
EU members last month agreed to impose travel curbs on seven southern African countries after they reported several cases of the Omicron variant, which is considered highly infectious .
At a regular meeting in Brussels, no minister suggested these restrictions should be lifted and Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge proposed negative PCR tests for all those travelling to the EU from outside the bloc.
"In addition, those not vaccinated or recovered should also be quarantined," he told ministers during a public session of their meeting.
In the fight against Omicron, French Health Minister Olivier Veran went as far as proposing tests for all travellers, including those coming from EU countries.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the pandemic was getting worse within the bloc because of the Delta variant and that could be exacerbated by Omicron.
Vaccination is the main tool to halt the spread of variants, she said, praising the quick and coordinated introduction of travel curbs soon after the emergence of Omicron. "We must now focus on stronger testing and contact tracing measures for travellers coming from areas of high risk," she said during the public session.
As of Tuesday, 274 cases were recorded in European countries monitored by the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control (ECDC), the agency said.
TRAVEL CURBS STILL USEFUL
Germany's outgoing health minister, Jens Spahn, said that travel curbs that limit arrivals to the European Union were important until more is known about Omicron.
"Until we know more, we need to be careful and so travel restrictions are important to keep the entry in Europe and Germany as low as possible," he told reporters as he arrived at the meeting.
EU sources said on Monday there was no immediate plan to ease the restrictions, quashing a media report that cited a diplomat saying this could be the case.
The head of the EU drugs regulator, Emer Cooke, told the meeting that vaccines remained the main tool to fight the virus, because they offered protection even against Omicron, although no conclusive evidence was yet available.
Separately, Malta's health minister, Christopher Fearne, told reporters before the meeting he wanted pharmaceutical companies to produce a modified version of their vaccines in less than 100 days.
Pfizer and BionTech, the main suppliers of COVID-19 vaccines to the EU, have said they would need 100 days.
"A hundred days is possibly too long for us to wait for a modified vaccine," Fearne said, noting however that there was no certainty that the Omicron variant would require an adapted vaccine.
