New Delhi: Amid Omicron concern across India, the Union Health Ministry on Friday issued revised guidelines making it mandatory for all international travellers to undergo home quarantine for seven days immediately after their arrival into the country.
The revised guidelines that will come into effect from January 11 said that all travellers (including those 2 percent 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.
"International travellers arriving through seaports and land ports will also have to undergo the same protocol...," the guidelines issued by the health ministry said.
Children under 5 years of age are exempted from both pre and post-arrival testing. "However, if found symptomatic for Covid19 on arrival or during the home quarantine period, they shall undergo testing and treated as per laid down protocol," the guidelines said.
It said that passengers from specified countries at risk, need to follow additional protocol including submission of samples for post-arrival Covid19 test at the point of arrival.
"Such travellers will be required to wait for their test results at the arrival airport before leaving or taking a connecting flight," the guidelines said.
The health ministry in its guidelines said that the global trajectory of the Covid19 pandemic continuous to decline with certain regional variations.
"The need to monitor the continuously changing nature of virus and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern must still remain in focus. The guidelines have been revised in view of reporting of a new variant named Omicron which has been classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO)," the ministry said.
As per health ministry statistics, 3,007 Omicron cases have been detected across India till date with Maharashtra (876), Delhi (465), Karnataka (333), Rajasthan (291), and Kerala (284) being the top five States with a maximum number of Omicron cases.
However, 1,199 patients have already recovered.
