New guidelines for international arrivals; clause on mandatory 7-day home quarantine removed

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India on February 10 revised its travel guidelines for international passengers, scrapping the 'at-risk' classification for countries that was introduced following the spread of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in  several nations late last year.

The new guidelines will come into effect from February 14.

The mandatory requirement of seven-day home quarantine for all international passengers arriving in India has been done away with. Instead, all passengers will need to self-monitor their health for 14 days.

Before undertaking their journey, passengers will need to upload a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report, with the test conducted within 72 hours before the start of the journey or the certificate of completing full primary vaccination schedule of COVID-19 vaccination in some cases.

The guidelines by the health ministry explained that there are countries which have agreement with India on mutual recognition of vaccination certificates of nationally recognised or WHO recognised vaccines. Similarly, there are countries which do not have such an agreement with India, but they exempt Indian citizens fully vaccinated with nationally recognised or WHO recognised vaccines.

On the basis of reciprocity, the travellers from only such countries which provide quarantine-free entry to Indians will be allowed for relaxation under certificate of completing full primary vaccination schedule of COVID-19 vaccination.

The new guidelines also said that 2 per cent of the total passengers in the flight will have to undergo random post-arrival testing at the airport and such travellers, preferably from different countries, in each flight need to be identified by the concerned airlines.

These passengers will be required to submit the samples before leaving the airport but in case a traveller tests COVID positive, their samples should be further sent for genomic testing at INSACOG laboratory network and the passenger will be treated and isolated as per the standard protocol.

The new norms also make it clear that while kids under five years of age are exempted from both pre- and post-arrival testing but if found symptomatic for COVID-19 on arrival or during the period of self-monitoring period, they shall undergo testing and treated as per protocol.

The last guidelines for international arrivals were released by the  ministry on January 20.