Mandaviya meets airport, port health officials over screening at entry points

New Delhi: Union Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday held a meeting with airport and port health officers as well as other authorities over screening and surveillance at all points of entries amid concerns over the new Coronavirus variant Omicron, official sources said.

The health ministry has been advising states and Union Territories to keep a strict vigil and undertake surveillance of international passengers coming to the country through various airports.

Testing of samples of international travellers coming from 'at risk' countries on the first day and of specified category of passengers on the eighth day needs to be scrupulously done, it had stressed.

International passengers from at-risk countries are being advised to wait at airports till the report of the RT-PCR test is available.

States/UTs have been asked to send all positive samples for genome sequencing to INSACOG labs (mapped with states) promptly and that the states should undertake contact tracing of positive individuals and follow up for 14 days.