Travellers From 7 More Nations Need To Carry RT-PCR Report When Coming To India: Govt

Mumbai: After the discovery of C.1.2 COVID-19 variant, the government has said that passengers travelling to India from seven more countries will have to carry a negative COVID-19 test report not older than 72 hours.

Those arriving from South Africa, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand and Zimbabwe will have to undergo another RT-PCR test upon landing at Indian airports. This is along with the one they need to do before boarding the flight.

As per the previous guidelines, passengers arriving from the United Kingdom, Europe and West Asia were required to re-test their RT-PCR test upon landing at Indian airports.

In a letter to all states and union territories, the government said that due to new mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, an increasing number of ‘forms of concern’ and ‘forms of interest’ across the planet, these countries was added to the list of countries where passengers will have to undergo another RT-PCR test after landing at Indian airports, as well as before boarding the flight.

“The states/UTs must also strengthen their Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) activities being coordinated through the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) network of laboratories, by sending a fixed percentage of samples of positive cases among international travellers for genome sequencing to the respective INSACOG Genome Sequencing Laboratories tagged with them,” read the letter written by Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and like us on Facebook for the latest updates and interesting stories.