Britain will demand a top mark Covid-19 test from President Uhuru Kenyatta and his team ahead of entering London today after being exempted from the ban on Kenyan travellers.
The Kenyan delegation will be required to take the PCR [Polymerase chain reaction] test — the most advanced of the three main Covid-19 tests which reveals whether someone has the virus very early on in their illness.
The UK is keen to guard the safety of its Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the royal family who will interact with Kenya’s officials during the three-day trip.
The trip, the first President Kenyatta is making in UK in 18 months, comes days after London retained Kenya on England’s “Red List” amid concerns about the spread of new Covid-19 variants.
Travellers arriving in the UK from countries on the Red List are denied entry, while returning Britons must submit to 10 days of mandatory quarantine in hotels.
The test was mandatory for all in Kenya’s delegation, including the President, ahead of the UK trip.
The UK travel ban has added weight to the decision of more than 50 countries denying access to Kenyans in the global race to protect nations against new variants of the coronavirus.
In May, Kenya lifted the ban on flights between Nairobi and London and eased restrictions imposed in retaliation to its inclusion in the Red List.
The UK has segmented countries into a green, amber and red lists, each carrying different degrees of restrictions for arrivals. A British citizen travelling from a Green List is not required to undergo a mandatory quarantine.
The UK claims its decisions, with the latest update coming in mid-July, are based on scientific evidence on the incidence of deadly and highly contagious Covid-19 strains.
