UPDATE 3-Spain to make quarantine obligatory for travellers from South Africa, Brazil
(Rewrites with new quarantine rules)
MADRID, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Spain will make travellers fromSouth Africa and Brazil go into quarantine for at least sevendays following their arrival, Health Minister Carolina Dariassaid on Wednesday, part of efforts to quell more-transmissiblevariants of the coronavirus.
Those travellers will have to stay at home and not receivevisitors for 10 days upon arrival - unless they test negativeduring their quarantine, Darias specified, in which case theywould regain mobility after seven days.
"It is an absolutely necessary and urgent measure to avoidthe propagation of those variants in our country," Darias said,as she called on regions not to relax measures. "We need tolearn from what happened in previous waves ... because once thenumbers go up it's very hard to bring them down again."
After a post-Christmas surge in which daily infectionsexceeded 40,000, Spain's third wave is receding, with thetwo-week incidence falling to 350 cases per 100,000 people onWednesday from 900 at the end of January.
The infection tally rose by 10,829 to 3.1 million onWednesday, while the death toll increased by 337 to 66,316.
In the next phase of its national inoculation plan, Spainwill administer AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine topeople aged 45 to 55, the Health Ministry said.
The shot, currently approved for those between 18 and 55, isnow being given to people in that age bracket with a high riskof contracting the virus, such as daycare workers andphysiotherapists, as well as police, firefighters and teachers.
Most of Spain's highest-priority nursing home residents andstaff have already received two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech orModerna vaccines, which are now being rolled out to over80-year-olds and medics.
Those shots will be given next to those over 70 and thenover 60, the ministry said, while people under 60 with a highrisk of serious COVID-19 will be next.
Authorities have administered 2.7 million doses and 1.1million people have received a full course in the population ofabout 47 million.
Several regions have relaxed limits on business openinghours and the hospitality sector, though curfews remain in forceacross Spain.
(Reporting by Nathan Allen and Clara-Laeila Laudette, editingby Giles Elgood and Grant McCool)
