PUNE: The civic body’s health team has identified 22
Covid-19 positive flyers among the travellers reaching the city airport from Delhi, Goa, Rajasthan and Gujarat in the past week without the
RT-PCR negative report.
Over 500 passengers, who did not undergo the RT-PCR tests before boarding the flights from these states, were screened at the
Pune airport. The
Maharashtra government has announced that people reaching the state from Delhi, Rajasthan, Goa and Gujarat either need to carry a negative RT-PCR test report or have to undergo the test at the arriving airports.
People reaching
Maharashtra from other parts of the country in flights connecting the four states will not have to carry with them the RT-PCR negative reports or undergo the test on arrival in the state.
“The protocol is set. Any traveller boarding a flight from the four states needs to undergo a
Covid-19 test before travel and carry the RT-PCR negative report. If the test results are positive, they are not supposed to board the flight. But during our checks, we found that some travellers had not undergone the tests. Their tests were conducted at the
Lohegaon airport,” said Sanjeev Wavare, a senior official of the
Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) health department.
A PMC official said the flyers testing Covid-19 positive people were told to get quarantined or admitted in hospital, depending on their health condition.
On an average, 60-72 flights are currently arriving or leaving the Lohegaon airport every day. The daily footfall of passengers is around 8,000-10,000, of whom 1%-2% do not carry the RT-PCR test reports.
The maximum number of flyers (122) reaching the city without undergoing the tests were identified on November 25, followed by 78 passengers on November 26 and 77 travellers on November 30.