Africa's top public health official said that he was encouraged by the way that South Africa had handled its latest Covid-19 wave driven by the Omicron variant, adding that severe lockdowns were no longer the best way to contain the virus.

“We are very encouraged with what we saw in South Africa during this period where they look at the data in terms of severity,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told a news conference.

“The period where we are using severe lockdowns as a tool is over. We should actually be looking at how we use public health and social measures more carefully and in a balanced way as the vaccination increases.”