Thursday 28 / November / 2024
Muscat: In view of the growing concern regarding the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday released a fresh set of guidelines for international arrivals in flights to India.
The guidelines came into effect from 10am (Indian Standard Time) on December 24, Saturday.
Among the protocols issued by the Health Ministry is randomly testing of 2 percent of total passengers in a flight, post arrival. Such travellers, preferably from different countries, will be identified by the airlines.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation on Friday said that airlines' crew members will have to bring such identified passengers to the testing facility at the airport.
"The airport operators would create necessary infrastructure to facilitate random testing of international arriving passengers at their respective airports," the communication said.
Travellers will submit their samples and be allowed to leave the airport thereafter. If a traveller tests positive, their sample will be sent for further genomic sequencing and they will be isolated/ treated as per protocol.
The communication has been sent to the aviation regulator DGCA and copies have been marked to all scheduled commercial airlines, airport operators as well as to states and Union Territories (UTs) in India, among others.
Unchanged from the previous guidelines enforced in November, the ministry suggests that all travellers should preferably be fully vaccinated as per the approved primary schedule of vaccination in their country.
Passengers with COVID-19 symptoms during travel will be isolated as per protocol. They must be masked, isolated and segregated from other passengers and moved to an isolation facility.
Upon arrival, the ministry recommends thermal screening of all passengers by health officials. Those found to be symptomatic should be isolated. Travellers are advised to self-monitor their health post-arrival and report any symptoms to their nearest health facility.
Meanwhile, India’s Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday announced that the RT-PCR test has been made mandatory for passengers coming from five countries, including China.
Air Suvidha mandatory for travellers from 5 countries
"The RT-PCR test to be mandatory for international arrivals from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand. On arrival, if any passenger from these countries is found symptomatic or tests positive for COVID-19 infection, then he/ she will be put under quarantine," Mandaviya told Indian news agency ANI.
He also said the Air Suvidha form filling to declare the current health status will also be made compulsory for international passengers arriving from these Asian countries.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Saturday morning that in the past 24 hours, India recorded 201 new COVID-19 infections.
The country's active caseload currently stands at 3,397 which accounts for 0.01 per cent of the total cases.
The recovery rate currently is at 98.8 percent. As many as 183 recoveries were made in the last 24 hours, thereby taking the total recoveries to 4,41,42,791.
The daily positivity rate stood at 0.15 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate stood at 0.14 per cent.
Mandaviya told parliament on Thursday that the government has started random RT-PCR sampling among the passengers arriving at international airports in the country amid the recent surge of coronavirus infection in various countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, France and the United States.
(With inputs from agencies)
