Dhaka, Nov. 27 -- South Africa said on Saturday it was being punished for its advanced ability to detect new COVID-19 variants early, like travel bans and restrictions imposed after detecting the new Omicron variant threatening to harm tourism and other sectors of the economy.

South Africa has some of the world's top epidemiologists and scientists, who have managed to detect emerging coronavirus variants and their mutations early on in their life cycle. The Omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa and has since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong, reports Reuters.

"This latest round of travel bans is akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants...