NEW DELHI: All international passengers arriving in India will have to undergo home quarantine for 7 days and undertake an RT-PCR test on the 8th day of arriving in the country, as per the revised guidelines for international arrivals that come into effect from January 11.
The new rules—revised in view of the fresh Covid wave, triggered by the Omicron variant-cover protocols to be followed by passengers, airlines and all entry points -airports, land borders and seaports.
The new norms say that all travellers, including that 2% who were selected for random testing on arrival and were found negative, will undergo home quarantine for 7 days and shall undertake RT-PCR test on the 8th day of arrival in India.
Also, travellers will also be required to upload the results of the RT-PCR test for Covid done on the 8th day on the Air Suvidha portal which will be monitored by the respective states.
The Union health ministry in the latest advisory has also said that all travellers who need to undertake testing on arrival, should preferably pre-book the test online on Air Suvidha Portal, to facilitate timely testing and avoid inconvenience.
They also need to fill in details about their travel details of the last 14 days, apart from uploading a negative Covid RT-PCR test report on the portal and the test should be conducted 72 hours before the journey.
As per the revised guidelines, passengers will also have to submit a declaration on the authenticity of the report.
Children under 5 years of age are exempted from both pre-and post-arrival testing. However, if found symptomatic for Covi-19 on arrival or during the home quarantine period, they will need to undergo testing and be treated as per laid down protocol.
People arriving from at-risk countries however will mandatorily need to submit samples for self-paid post-arrival Covid tests at the point of arrival and will be required to wait for their test results at the arrival airport before leaving or taking a connecting flight.
If tested negative they will have to be in home quarantine for 7 days but in case of a positive test result, their samples should be further sent for genomic testing at the INSACOG laboratory network.
These travellers, as per the new guidelines, will be managed at an isolation facility and treated as per laid down standard protocol including contact tracing norms while the contacts of such positive cases will be kept under home quarantine monitored strictly by the concerned state governments.