South Africa – COVID-19 update

France and Switzerland have been added to South Africa’s travel ban list.

In a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19, South Africa has added France and Switzerland to the list of high-risk countries for which travel bans have been issued.

The countries were added to a list in a travel advisory issued by the Department of International Relations & Co-operation on Tuesday (March 18). Currently, destinations identified as being high-risk in terms of COVID-19 are Iran, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, South Korea, China, Germany, US, UK, France and Switzerland. Medium-risk destinations highlighted are Singapore, Hong Kong and Portugal. Returning South Africans from all these countries will be required to self-isolate for 14 days and only get tested should they show any symptoms of COVID-19.

South Africans are advised to postpone all non-essential foreign travel. All non-essential domestic travel is discouraged.

UPDATE: Mauritius closes its borders to all foreign nationals effective 19 March 2020.

Mauritius will be closing its borders to all foreign nationals, including South Africans, effective 19 March 2020. The airport was closed to incoming flights as of 10:00 am on 19 March 2020. It was previously communicated that all passengers, including transits, would no longer be permitted to enter the country for a period of 14 days. The travel ban for foreign nationals has now been extended to 30 April 2020.

We understand that these are challenging times, and we are here to support you in any way possible. We are proactively contacting our customers to assist with changes to their immediate travel. Should you have any questions, please contact your dedicated Travel Expert.

Call volumes may be higher than usual, and our Travel Experts are assisting customers with bookings in order of date of departure (immediate departures over the next 14 days).

You can locate their details on your travel documentation or HERE