India includes Bangladesh among ‘at risk’ countries

India has included Bangladesh in the list of countries deemed “at risk” amid the scare of spread of Omicron Covid variant.

As per the new guidelines released by the government on Sunday, the UK, entire Europe, and 11 other countries — Bangladesh, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Israel — are “at risk”, reports Hindustan Times.

The emergence of the new Covid strain has made the government cautious about resuming international flights.

After a long hiatus of more than 20 months, the Indian government on November 26 announced the resumption of scheduled international commercial flights from December 15. Flights are currently on under bilateral bubble arrangements with countries.

Passengers travelling from or transiting through ‘at risk’ countries will have to undergo RT-PCR test on arrival in India and will be required to wait for the results before leaving the airport or taking a connecting flight, according to revised guidelines issued by the Health Ministry.

Travellers who are infected by the Omicron variant and test positive will be taken to a medical facility for isolation, where they will need to stay until they test negative.

If they are infected by any of the other variants, their release will be at the discretion of a doctor based on their condition.

For people who test negative after coming from the listed countries, they will need to be in home quarantine for seven days and take another test on the eighth day. If they are positive, they will need to report to the Covid-19 helpline, the guidelines said.

The travellers will also have to declare their travel history for the last 14 days.

At least nine countries have confirmed detecting the super mutated strain as of Sunday.

On November 26, the World Health Organization declared the B.1.1.529 variant, first detected in southern Africa, to be a variant of concern and renamed it Omicron.