NEW DELHI: With the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus being detected in at least two more countries on Sunday, the Centre decided to review its decision on resuming commercial foreign flights. Before Omicron surfaced, it had reportedly planned to resume full international travel from December 15.
And now, new guidelines from the health ministry state that passengers travelling from or transiting through “at risk” countries will have to take a RT-PCR test on arrival in India and will be required to wait for the results before leaving the airport or taking a connecting flight. Five per cent of travellers from other countries in each flight will be randomly tested at the airport.
The airlines concerned should identify the five per cent of such travellers to be tested in each flight, preferably from different countries. Such travellers shall be escorted by the airlines or the Ministry of Civil Aviation authorities to the testing area on arrival and the cost of testing of such travellers shall be borne by the ministry.
The existing guidelines have been revised in view of reporting of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, named Omicron, which has been now classified as a Variant of Concern by the World Health Organization, the Health Ministry said.
This standard operating procedure shall be valid from December 1 till further orders. The revised guidelines will supersede earlier ones issued on and after November 11. According to the revised guidelines, before boarding passengers originating from or transiting through at-risk countries shall be informed by the airlines that they will undergo post-arrival testing, quarantine if tested negative, stringent isolation protocols if tested positive, etc.
Do’s and Don’ts shall be provided along with ticket to the travellers by the airlines and airlines will allow boarding of only those passengers who have filled in the self-declaration form on the Air Suvidha portal and uploaded the negative RT-PCR test report. This test should have been conducted within 72 hours prior to the journey. At the time of boarding the flight, only asymptomatic travellers will be allowed to board after thermal screening.
The “at-risk” countries are European nations, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel. On Sunday, in an urgent meeting chaired by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, the government issued a slew of directions to states for ramping up testing-surveillance measures and health facilities, asking them to focus on intensive containment, monitoring of hot spots and increasing vaccination coverage. The meeting follows a high-level review by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
For their part, states began to re-tighten Covid restrictions and trace people who arrived from abroad, especially from ‘at risk’ nations, in the last one month. Though no Omicron cases have been recorded in India yet, confirmed or suspected cases have emerged in Europe, Israel and Hong Kong — just days after it was first detected in South Africa. The Netherlands confirmed 13 cases, Australia two and the UK one on Sunday. In drastic moves, Israel barred entry to foreigners and Morocco suspended all incoming air travel.
Catching the bug in time
South Africa didn’t wait for gene sequencing to spot the variant, as it used a RT-PCR test with a gene kit that can show a result of a undetectable S-gene target — a marker for Omicron. India doesn’t have the kit yet, but it can begin manufacturing quickly, says scientist Anurag Agrawal