Government issues new guidelines for international travellers: See details

Relaxing Covid-19 guidelines for international passengers, the Union Health Ministry on Thursday said such travellers would not have to undergo the mandatory seven-day home quarantine and there would be no screening at airports for every passenger coming from “at-risk” countries.

The new guidelines, which would come into effect from February 14, has done away with the distinction between “at-risk” countries and others. Such differentiation was introduced in late November after the detection and spread of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa and Europe.

The random sampling of two per cent of all international passengers, however, would continue to check the emergence of any new variants. Such travellers in each flight shall be identified by the concerned airlines (preferably from different countries). They will submit the samples and leave the airport, leaving their contact address and phone numbers behind.

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The new guideline suggested 14 days self-monitoring post-arrival as against seven days home quarantine as was mandated earlier, said Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in a tweet.

The need for undertaking RT-PCR tests on the 8th day and uploading the same on the designated portal (Air Suvidha) has been dispensed with.

The ministry modified the guidelines after noticing a declining trend in Covid-19 infections in nearly 140 countries including the USA, France, Italy and Spain.

On arrival, all passengers would be checked using thermal screening. Only if they are found symptomatic, they would be taken to the medical facility.

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The new guideline also allows uploading of the complete vaccination certificates instead of RT-PCR negative reports. But such a provision is for only those countries with whom India has a reciprocal arrangement of recognising each others' vaccines. There are 82 such nations at the moment.

“Following a risk-based approach and the trajectory of cases at the global and national level, the revised guidelines for international arrivals have been issued,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the Union Health Ministry.

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