Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 13: India is lifting the mandatory Covid-19 test for travellers arriving from/via China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand and Japan from Monday as infections related to the virus have dropped sharply worldwide.
As Covid-19 cases have been on a sharp decline worldwide, the Centre has also removed the rule to upload the ‘Air Suvidha’ form for passengers arriving through or via the above six countries.
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In a letter to civil aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal, union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote that the current mandate of pre-departure Covid-19 testing – taken not more than 72 hours before the journey – and self-health declaration on ‘Air Suvidha’ for international arrivals from six countries was being changed in lieu of the downward spiral of Covid-19 cases. However, the union health ministry will continue monitoring emerging variants and random testing for Covid-19 of 2% of all travellers arriving in India, irrespective of the source country, will remain. The updated guidelines will come into effect from 11 am on February 13.
The decision comes in the wake of a significant decline in coronavirus cases in these countries, over the past few weeks. According to the World Health Organization’s data, the last 28 days saw a dip of 89% in new infections compared to the numbers registered in the previous 28 days.
Notably, India continues to witness a decline in the number of Covid-19 cases with less than 100 being registered daily. As per data on Sunday, 124 new Covid-19 cases were recorded while the active infection numbers rose to 1,843. Number of deaths due to Covid19 stood at 5, 30,750. According to the health ministry’s website, around 220.62 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in India till date.
