PremiumDelegates and participants arriving to attend the G20 meetings in India till November 2023 will be exempted from the mandatory 2 per cent random Covid-19 testing at the airports, a top government official said.
The G20 delegates and participants arriving in India will be exempted from the 2 per cent random Covid testing rule for international arrivals, top government official told news agency ANI on 13 January.
While speaking to ANI, official said, "This has been noted on the request of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to the Ministry of Health Family and Welfare (MoHFW) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation has been asked to inform all stakeholders at airports."
The government has decided to exempt the delegates and participants arriving to attend the G20 meetings in the country till November 2023, official said.
India is hosting the G20 summit this year after taking over the presidency of the G20 Forum from Indonesia. The country formally assumed the G20 (Group of 20) Presidency on 1 December. The next G20 Leaders' Summit at the level of Heads of State/Government is scheduled to be held on 9-10 September in New Delhi.
As per official, the MEA had on Wednesday requested the aviation ministry for this exemption until November 2023.
“The ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) has informed all airports and their operators," they said.
On 12 January, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that more than 200 air passengers tested Covid-19 positive with BF.7 variant, which is behind the massive rise in cases in China, during the random sampling at the airports.
The health ministry had, on January 9, said the sentinel-sequencing of 324 Covid-positive samples lifted from the community between December 29 and January 7 had revealed the presence of all the Omicron variants, such as BA.2 and its sub-lineages including BA.2.75, XBB(37), BQ.1 and BQ.1.1(5), among others.
Besides, XBB(11), BQ.1.1(12) and BF7.4.1(1) were the main variants detected in the positive samples of 50 international passengers that have so far been genome-sequenced.
The 2 percent of random coronavirus test began on 24 December when the Health Ministry issued an advisory to all the stakeholders to mandate the same. This came to prevent the sudden global surge in the cases of coronavirus infection was reported.
As per the issued advisory, the passengers arriving in India from designated high-risk countries like China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and Japan would have to fill out an Air Suvidha form along with a negative RT-PCR report with 72 hours of their arrival in India .
Meanwhile, PM Modi has termed the G-20 presidency as "a big opportunity for India". All the G20 countries-- Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union-- are set to attend the meetings and events in India.
(With inputs from ANI)