Passengers from the UK to India will now be subjected to a self-paid RT-PCR test: Health Ministry

On Saturday, the health ministry made an announcement saying all the passengers traveling from the united kingdom to India are going to be subjected to mandatory self-paid RT-PCR tests at the airport.

On December 22 flight services between both the countries were suspended to stop the spread of a new strain of coronavirus which was found in the population of the united kingdom. The flight service will start on January 6. The new strain covid-19 has been detected in over 29 travelers in India.

According to the guidelines of SOP (standard operating procedure), the passengers traveling between 8 to 31 January will be subjected to mandatory self-paid RT-PCR test on arrival at an Indian airport. The SOP guidelines further say that, "Adequate arrangements for passengers waiting for their RT-PCR test as well as test results duly following effective isolation may also be made at the airports in conjunction with the airport authorities."

On the online portal www.newdelhiairport.in traveling passengers will have to submit their self-declaration form at a minimum of 72 hours before travel and also carry a negative RT-PCR test with them.

The isolation facility for the passengers who test positive at the airport is also taken care of by an institutional isolation facility in an isolation unit coordinated by the State Health Authorities. They will earmark the specific facilities for such isolation, treatment and take necessary action to send the positive sample for genome sequencing.

The ongoing treatment protocol including home isolation will be mandatorily be followed if the report is consistent with the current virus genome circulating in the country.

According to the guidelines of SOP ( Standard operating procedure) which says, "If the genomic sequencing indicates the presence of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 then the patient will continue to remain in a separate isolation unit. The patient shall be tested on the 14th day, after having tested positive in the initial test. The patient will be kept in the isolation facility till his sample is tested negative."

Those travelers who are found negative will at RT-PCR test will also be added to quarantined at home for 14  days regularly stay connected with the concerned state and district integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.

The central government on Friday said that four more cases of UK strain virus have been detected in the country which tallies to a total of 29 cases so far. They are kept separately in physical isolation at health facilities.

However, the countries which reported the new strain virus are Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.

From 25 November to 23 December midnight nearly 33000 passengers disembarked at different airports from the UK. All the passengers are being tracked and subjected by UTs to have an RT-PCR test.