India revises travel guidelines, cancels 7-day quarantine for foreign arrivals

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday issued revised guidelines for international travellers which recommends 14 days self-monitoring post-arrival as against seven days home quarantine as mandated earlier.

The guidelines, which relaxed the protocols to be followed during international travel, will come into force from Monday.

As per the newly revised guidelines, all international travellers can now choose the option of uploading a certificate of completing the full primary vaccination schedule of Covid from selected 82 countries on a reciprocal basis, besides uploading negative RT-PCR report (taken 72 hrs prior to journey).

The list of countries includes Australia, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Hong Kong, Iran, Maldives, Israel, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United States of America, among others.

"The demarcation of `at-risk` countries and other countries have been removed.

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Accordingly need for giving samples on the port of arrival and waiting till the result is obtained from countries `at-risk` is dispensed with," tweeted Mansukh Mandaviya, Health Minster.

"On arrival passenger found to be symptomatic should be immediately isolated and taken to a medical facility. Two per cent of the total passengers in the flight will undergo random testing at the airport. If found positive, the sample of such travellers will be sent for Genome Sequencing," reads the official order.

The contacts of passenger testing positive shall be identified and managed as per the protocol.

"Contacts of the suspect case are the co-passenger seated in the same row, three rows in front and three rows behind along with the identified cabin crew," read the statement.

The guidelines will be followed by all airlines and at all points of entry including airports, seaports and land ports.