From tomorrow, December 1, passengers flying in or transiting from countries affected by the new Covid variant Omicron will need a mandatory negative report of RT-PCR test conducted on arrival in India for leaving the airport, else they would be sent to government-identified quarantine centres.
The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday night issued an order asking airports to have “separate holding area (while passengers from at-risk countries are awaiting their RT-PCR test results).”
“All incoming passengers accordingly may be advised, while filling the Air Suvidha portal, that they should plan their onwards journey keeping in mind the stay at the airport to obtain the test results,” it says.
All international arrivals have to give the travel history of the last 14 days.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry has issued revised ‘Guidelines for International arrivals’.The updated guidelines require all travellers (irrespective of COVID-19 vaccination status) coming to India from countries identified as ‘countries at-risk’ to mandatorily undergo post-arrival COVID-19 testing at airport on arrival in addition to pre-departure COVID-19 testing undertaken 72 hours before the departure. For passengers found positive in these tests, they will be isolated and treated as per the clinical management protocol besides their samples also taken for Whole Genome Sequencing. The passengers found negative can depart the airport but have to undergo home isolation for 7 days, followed by repeat testing on the8th day of arrival in India, followed by 7 days of self-monitoring.
Further, in view of reports of an increasing number of countries reporting the Omicron variant, the present Guidelines also mandate that 5% of the travellers coming from countries that are not in the ‘at risk category’ will also be tested on a random basis at the airports for COVID-19.
Samples of all individuals testing positive for Covid-19, either at airports under home isolation or during random sampling, will also be sent for Whole Genomic Sequencing at identified INSACOG network laboratories to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2 variants (including Omicron).
Omicron covid variant
The B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) was first reported from South Africa on 24 November 2021 has been classified as Variant of Concern (VoC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in view of a large number of mutations noted in the variant,
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