New Zealand's borders will remain closed until its population is vaccinated against Covid-19 - and could stay shut for most of 2021, the country's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said.
The country has so far not approved a vaccine, but has controlled the virus by taking a hard stance on travel and movement to protect its population.
Ms Ardern spoke in a news conference, telling the country's press that a vaccine could be approved as soon as next week.
The country confirmed its first new case of the virus in months in December.
The PM said: "Given the risks in the world around us and the uncertainty of the global rollout of the vaccine, we can expect our borders to be impacted for much of this year
"For travel to restart, we need one of two things: we either need the confidence that being vaccinated means you don't pass Covid-19 on to others - and we don't know that yet; or we need enough of our population to be vaccinated and protected that people can safely re-enter New Zealand.
"In the meantime, we will continue to pursue travel bubbles with Australia and the Pacific, but the rest of the world simply poses too great a risk to our health and our economy to take the risk at this stage."
The recent case was found in a woman who had returned to New Zealand on 30 December. She tested positive for the South African strain after she had completed her two-week mandatory quarantine
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