Home ›› 17 Feb 2022 ›› Front
The health authorities will start making inbound passengers suspected of having Covid-19 undergo rapid antigen tests at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport from Saturday.
Passengers will not have to pay for the tests. Any passenger sneezing or coughing will also face the test.
Dr Shahriar Sajjad, assistant director of the airport’s health office, told The Business Post a passenger would be subjected to the test if the screening machine shows he/she has a high temperature.
He said the test report would be provided swiftly. “Anyone testing positive will have to undergo the RT-PCR test in a government-selected lab after leaving the airport.”
Inbound passengers, except for children below 12, have to bring the RT-PCR negative certificate with them and the test has to be done within 24 hours before the departure, according to a circular of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) issued in November last year.
On December 2, CAAB issued another circular mentioning the government’s health instructions amid the outbreak of the Omicron variant.
It said all inbound passengers from Botswana, Eswatini, Ghana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe would have to complete a mandatory 14-day institutional quarantine at the Bangladesh government-selected hotels at their own expense until further notice.
Depending on the RT-PCR test result on the 14th day of the quarantine, the passengers testing negative would be released.
CAAB sources said passengers coming from these African countries are mainly suspected of having infections.
