BERLIN, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The German federal government on Wednesday extended its travel warning for more than 160 non-European Union (EU) countries due to COVID-19 until the end of September.

From October onwards, the travel warnings would be replaced with "differentiated travel and security warnings" applying to individual countries, the German Federal Foreign Office said in a statement.

An early lifting of travel warning in country-specific individual cases would be announced separately, according to the Foreign Office.

Unnecessary tourist travel to countries that were not classified as risk areas would still be discouraged if these countries restricted entry to or from Germany, the government stressed in the statement.

For the evaluation, the government would also consider the overall situation in the respective country, such as the state of health systems, when issuing travel warnings.

Following a joint agreement between the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Robert Koch Institute is responsible for publishing the list of international risk areas of COVID-19.