  Though screened at large distances, a point-like electric charge can still
participate in a long-range electromagnetic interaction in the Higgs phase,
namely that with the Aharonov-Bohm field produced by a localized magnetic flux.
We show that this follows from the fact that the screening charge, induced in
the presence of a Higgs condensate, does not interact with the Aharonov-Bohm
field. The same phenomenon occurs, if a Chern-Simons term is incorporated in
the action. This observation provides a physical basis for the recently
proposed classification of the superselection sectors of this model in terms of
a quasi-Hopf algebra.
