The Canadian Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos, revealed this Friday that Mozambique is on the list of ten countries that will again be authorized to operate direct flights to Canadian territory.

"Flights from the 10 countries - South Africa, Botswana, Essuatini, Egypt, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe -, will be allowed again as of 00:00 on Saturday," he said at a press conference.

The existing ban was justified following the emergence of the Omicron variant, after confirming that large-scale community transmission of this new strain of the virus is already present in Canada.

To this end, Jean-Yves Duclos added that the need for all people arriving by plane to take the PCR test within 72 hours before traveling into the country will be reinstated.

"In view of the community broadcast of the Omicron variant in Canada it no longer makes sense to maintain the ban on those flights," the Canadian government believes.

Meanwhile, due to the spread of the new variant, all Canadian provinces are enforcing new restrictions on Christmas holidays and the federal government warned this week that Canadians should cancel all international travel deemed non-essential.