The UK authorities have finally reviewed the travel ban imposed on Nigeria and 10 other countries over the Omicron COVID vari  

Sajid Javid, UK Health Secretary, announced this when he briefed the British Parliament on Tuesday.

He told the lawmakers that England will remove all 11 countries from red list from 04:00 GMT on Wednesday.

The Health Secretary said the travel red list for countries is no longer working in stopping the spread of new variant.

He said: “So I can announce today that whilst we’ll maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow.”

Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe are currently on the list.

But it has since emerged the variant is already being transmitted widely within the UK.

Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, also took to Twitter to announce that lifting of the ban will take effect on Wednesday.

“From 4am on Weds 15 Dec, ALL 11 countries will be removed from England’s travel red. All current TESTING measures remain in place & will be reviewed in the first week of January,” he tweeted.

“As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health.”