The updated guidelines will go into effect on January 11 and will be in place until additional directives are issued.
Following a high increase in Covid-19 cases in recent days, the Centre declared a mandatory 7-day home quarantine for all overseas visitors to India on Friday. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) statement, all overseas travellers entering India would be subject to a mandatory 7-day quarantine upon arrival. Thermal screening of all inbound international passengers would be carried out upon arrival at Indian airports, according to a new set of rules. The updated guidelines will go into effect on January 11 and will be in place until additional directives are issued.
Ahead of the travel, the passengers are required to provide comprehensive and accurate information in a self-declaration form on the online Air Suvidha site, including travel data from the previous 14 days and upload a Covid-19 RT-PCR result that is negative. The test should have been completed within 72 hours before embarking on the journey.
Passengers who exhibit symptoms during screening at arrival must be immediately segregated and sent to a medical institution per health procedures. Their contacts must be identified and treated following the procedure if they test positive. All passengers from high-risk nations will be tested upon arrival, and the individual will bear the expense. The traveller will then have to wait for the results of the tests before departing or connecting. If they test negative, they will be placed in home isolation for seven days before doing another RT-PCR on the eighth day. The passengers will also be asked to upload the results of the repeat RT-PCR test for COVID-19 performed on the eighth day to the Air Suvidha portal, which the various states or union territories will monitor.
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If such travellers are tested negative, they will continue to self-monitor their health for the next seven days; but, if they are tested positive, their samples should be sent for genetic testing at the INSACOG laboratory network. They must be monitored in an isolation facility and treated in accordance with the standard procedure, which includes the contact tracing indicated in para. Contacts of such positive cases should be subjected to home quarantine, which the competent state government should vigorously enforce under the protocol.
International visitors coming in India via seaports or land ports would be subject to the same laws, except that they will not be able to register. On arrival, they will be required to submit the self-declaration form to authorities. Children under the age of five are excluded from Covid testing. They will be tested and treated according to procedure if they are found to be symptomatic for COVID-19 upon arrival or while in home quarantine.
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