The Federal Government has issued a travel ban on 13 countries over the spread of the Coronavirus.

The Federal Government has announced the restriction of entry into the country for travellers from China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Japan and France to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Other countries affected are Germany, United States of America, Norway, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Switzerland.

The Ban will take effect from Saturday, March 21, 2020.

The country also announced a temporary suspension of the visa-on-arrival policy

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation and chairman of the Presidential Task Force for the Control of Covid-19, Boss Mustapha, announced the decision Wednesday morning at a press briefing.

“The restriction will come into effect from Saturday for four weeks subject to review, “ he said.

Mustapha said the new measures were taken after an assessment of the global situation

According to him, the affected countries had over 1,000 cases domestically.

The SGF said,

“All persons arriving in Nigeria who might have visited these countries 15 days to prior to such arrival will be subjected to supervised self-isolation and testing for 14 days.

“The Federal Government is temporarily suspending the issuance of all visas on arrival.

“The Federal Government is also counselling all Nigerians to cancel or postpone all nonessential travels to these countries.

“The federal government urges public health authorities of countries with high burden to conduct diligent departure screening of passengers and also endorsee this travel advisory to their nationals to postpone travels to Nigeria.”