India lifts negative RT-PCR mandate for fliers from China

With global decline in cases of coronavirus, India on Monday lifted restrictions on visitors from six countries on: China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, and Japan.

The government has also removed the rule to upload the ‘Air Suvidha’ form for passengers arriving through or via the six countries. People travelling form these countries will no longer be required to go through pre-boarding RT-PCR tests, taken not more than 72 hours before the journey. The revised guidelines go into effect at 11 am on February 13.

India had last month made the pre-boarding RT-PCR tests mandatory for travellers from the six countries following spurt in case.

According to Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, in the previous four weeks, COVID-19 cases in these seven countries have steadily declined. Bhushan in a letter to civil aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal, wrote that the current mandate of pre-departure Covid-19 testing and self-health declaration on ‘Air Suvidha’ for international arrivals from six countries was being changed in lieu of the downward spiral of Covid-19 cases.

However, the union health ministry will continue monitoring emerging variants and random testing for Covid-19 of 2% of all travellers arriving in India, irrespective of the source country, will remain, according to Hindustan Times.

Notably, the random tests were kickstarted again from December 24 following halt in November. The decision was taken following sharp increase in cases in these countries.

According to the World Health Organization’s data, the last 28 days saw a dip of 89% in new infections compared to the numbers registered in the previous 28 days.

Chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wu Zunyou, recently stated that there is very less chances of China having to battle a fresh wave of Covid-19 on a large scale in the near future.

Last week, a study published in The Lancet claimed that China reported no new COVID-19 variants during the recent spike in cases since the country relaxed its strict zero-COVID policy.

-INDIA NEWS STREAM

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