New Delhi: India has mandated a negative RT-PCR report not less than 72 hours for passengers arriving from seven nations inclusive of China and South Africa. This move by the Union Health Ministry comes in the backdrop of the discovery of the C.1.2 COVID-19 variant in South Africa.
Earlier, the Centre had mandated the rule only for passengers arriving from UK, Europe and the Middle East along with South Africa, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe being added today.
The new variant was first detected in South Africa in May. Since then the variant has been detected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, England, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland.
As per the new guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and External Affairs, only asymptomatic passengers would be allowed to board flights from India and on arrival in India will be subjected to an RT-PCR test again.
Earlier, BMC had mandated the RT-PCR reports for international passengers arriving from Sept 3. Despite no cases due to the new strain that have been detected in the nation, the Union Health Ministry has asserted to implement strict rules to prevent the prevalence.