To tackle the coronavirus variant Omicron’s threat, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has decided to make RT-PCR testing mandatory for all foreign travellers to the Union territory at airports. The travellers will be allowed to enter Jammu and Kashmir only if they test negative.
If tested negative, the travellers will be sent to home quarantine for seven days and re-tested on the eighth day, according to a decision taken at a meeting convened by Jammu divisional commissioner Dr Raghav Langer here on Tuesday evening to review Covid-19 testing, tracing and mitigation measures.
Those tested positive will be sent to institutional isolation centres (designated health facilities) for 15 days and their samples sent for genome sequencing at ICMR-approved laboratories.
Asking the concerned officers to assess data from the Air Suvidha portal for early detection of the incoming travellers from countries listed as at-risk, the divisional commissioner directed the state surveillance officer to share the lists with CMOs and field surveillance units on a real-time basis. The CMOs were asked to paste stickers of ‘home quarantine’ on the gate of foreign travellers during the observation period of eight days.
He also directed the district administration of entry point districts — Kathua and Jammu — to notify the government and paid quarantine centres to deal with any future situation, besides stressing the need to ramp up random RAT testing of domestic travellers at airport, Lakhanpur and Katra as a preventive measure.
Deputy commissioner, Kathua, was told to activate a separate testing counter for persons having a history of foreign travel besides putting in place all requisite arrangements for quarantine facilities at Lakhanpur. Dr Langer stressed on the strengthening of surveillance and directed the deputy commissioners to ensure that proper mechanism is being followed at the airport, Lakhanpur, Katra and Jammu Railway stations, as also the southern portal of Jawahar Tunnel /Navyuga Tunnel at Ramban.
The health department was directed to designate separate wards for Covid-19 positive patients with a foreign travel history and to ensure that they are not mixed with the positive cases (locals/domestic/contacts) without foreign travel history.
It was informed in the meeting that DRDO Hospital, Jammu would be the designated facility for containment of positive cases having foreign travel history.