[Source: SBS News]

Australia will shut its borders to nine southern African countries and suspend all flights from those countries amid growing concerns about the new Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt says Australia is in a vastly different position to other countries due to high vaccination rates, but five actions need to be taken to protect people.

He says all flights will be immediately suspended for two weeks from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Seychelles, Malawi, and Mozambique.

Any Australian citizens or dependants who have been in those countries in the past 14 days must go into mandatory quarantine and non-citizens who have been in southern Africa will be banned from entering Australia.