South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is receiving treatment for "mild COVID-19 symptoms" after testing positive for the virus on Sunday, his office said in a statement.

Ramaphosa, 69, began feeling unwell earlier Sunday after leaving a state memorial service in Cape Town in honor of Frederik Willem de Klerk, South Africa's last apartheid president and a Nobel laureate, who died last month. Ramaphosa, who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, was experiencing "mild" symptoms and a test confirmed he was infected, according to his office. The statement didn't say whether he has the omicron variant, which was discovered by scientists in southern Africa last month and is spreading rapidly.

Ramaphosa is self-isolating in Cape Town and is being monitored by the South African Military Health Service. He has delegated all his responsibilities to Deputy President David Mabuza for the next week, his office said.

Last week, Ramaphosa traveled with a delegation to four West African nations. He and the members of the South African delegation were all tested for COVID-19 in each of the countries during their trip. They returned to South Africa on Dec. 8, after testing negative in Senegal. Ramaphosa tested negative again upon arriving in Johannesburg that day, according to his office.

The statement advised people who had contact with the South African president on Sunday to watch for symptoms or to get tested for COVID-19.

"President Ramaphosa says his own infection serves as a caution to all people in the country to be vaccinated and remain vigilant against exposure," his office said in the statement. "Vaccination remains the best protection against severe illness and hospitalization."

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou

British Transport Secretary Grant Schapps announced Tuesday that England will remove all southern African nations from its travel red list.

After the omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa and Botswana in November, several countries around the world, including England and the United States, imposed travel bans on a swath of nations in southern Africa.

The World Health Organization warned that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread of omicron, deemed a "variant of concern," and that restrictions place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.

The countries of Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be taken off England's travel red list on Wednesday at 4 a.m. GMT, according to Schapps, who noted that all current testing measures remain in place.

"As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health," Schapps wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

Despite the travel bans, the heavily mutated variant has taken a foothold in London. British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Monday that omicron accounts for more than 44% of COVID-19 infections in the U.K. capital and it's expected to become the dominant variant there by Wednesday, overtaking the highly contagious delta variant.

Addressing Parliament again on Tuesday, the health secretary called omicron "a grave threat" and said the "race" to get as many people vaccinated and boosted "is new national mission."

"Scientists have never seen a COVID-19 variant that’s capable of spreading so rapidly," Javid said.

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou