Covid negative report a must for international flyers: Karnataka government

KEY STORY

• The state government on Wednesday made it mandatory for international passengers coming to Bengaluru and Mangaluru from any country to furnish a Covid-19 negative certificate or to undergo a RT-PCR test on arrival.

• The move follows reports about a new virus strain in the United Kingdom and some European countries. The government said passengers should have obtained the negative test report 72 hours prior to departure.

• Earlier, the government had announced this rule would apply only to those coming from or transited through airports in the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands. However, with reports of a few international passengers turning positive, the government did not want to take chances and decided to screen all passengers from any country.

• Pankaj Kumar Pandey, health commissioner, said international passengers who have given swabs for testing at the airports, are advised strict home quarantine till receipt of the lab report.

• The government has intensified tracing all those who have travelled to Karnataka from the UK or transited through its airports in the last four weeks, from November 25 to December 23. Preliminary reports suggest that at least 2,500 persons arrived in the state from the UK in the past month.

• All testing labs have been instructed to send positive swab samples of those who had either transited or travelled from the UK to InStem lab in National Centre for Biological Sciences or to Nimhans for genomic sequencing testing which will be done free of cost.

• The government has mandated that Covid positive cases with UK travel and transit history will have to be in institutional or hospital isolation.

• If the genomic sequencing report turns out to be positive for the new variant of the virus, the patient will continue to remain in a separate isolation unit. Such patients will have to be tested on Day 14 (from the time the first report came positive).

CONCLUSION

• If the patient is found positive on Day 14, she has to be hospitalised until her two consecutive samples taken 24 hours apart are tested negative.

• Besides, strict 14 days of home quarantine is a must for all those with UK travel, transit history, who have tested negative on RT-PCR test done on arrival at airports, seaports on December 21-23.

Institutional quarantine for all contacts of positive flyers

All contacts of positive cases, who have travelled/ transited from the UK between December 21 and 23 will be subjected to institutional quarantine. Contacts include co-passengers seated in the same row, three rows in the front and three rows behind, with identified cabin crew. All contacts will be tested.