The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) criticized on Thursday the restrictions imposed on countries where a new variant has been detected, whose transparency should be "compensated, not punished".

According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was speaking at the closing session of the first International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA), he thanked South Africa and Botswana for the prompt detection and sequencing of the new Omicron variant, for which the South African health authorities gave the alert on November 24.

In this regard, the WHO director-general referred to the restrictions these countries have suffered from other states as "unfair.

"I am glad to see that some countries have lifted the restrictions. We need to compensate for transparency and not punish, but our systems do not promote that countries alert others and that has costs," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

According to the official, even though covid-19 revealed that national production should be a national priority, encouraging manufacturing in Africa.

"More than any other crisis, covid-19 has reminded us that the most precious commodity in the world is health," he said, listing a number of priorities: combining for a better response to the pandemic, investment in research, science, and local manufacturing capacity, and finally, investment in primary health care to make medical care available.

"Health is not a luxury, but is a fundamental human right" and the African continent "must invest in health," he concluded.