The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) has gazetted new regional guidelines to regulate human and cargo movement that member states should implement to fight the spread of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.

"Comesa has published and gazetted the regional guidelines on the movement of goods and services across the region.

The overriding principle of the guidelines is to apply common measures on trade corridors and border points to safely maintain the flow of goods and services within the region.

"The Covid-19 crisis has brought to the fore the challenge of protecting the health of the population whilst avoiding undue disruptions to the free movement of persons and the delivery of goods and essential services across the region," Comesa director of trade, Dr Christopher Onyango was quoted as saying.

In adopting the guidelines, the ministers acknowledged that despite the incidence of the pandemic, the implementation of the common market policies on the movement of goods, services and persons should continue to be governed by the principle of market integration and regional cooperation.