Doha: Qatar on Sunday has updated its travel policy for travelers coming from six Asian countries, including India, and set up a mandatory hotel quarantine for them.
Starting from August 2, arrivals from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka who have got vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 in Qatar will go into two-day hotel quarantine, the health ministry said.
Passengers vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 in the state of Qatar, are allowed to take PCR test results on the second day and the quarantine period will end after obtaining a negative PCR test.
According to the ministry, unvaccinated residents coming from these countries will have to go into a hotel quarantine for ten days.
Travelers who show symptoms of infection will be screened as necessary, depending on the opinion of the medical team at the airport or entry points to the country, the ministry added
Qatar, which has a population of 2.7 million including 2.3 million expats, started mass vaccinations against the virus on December 23.
Qatar health authorities there have authorized the use of the Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Sinopharm vaccines.
On July 8, the Qatari interior ministry announced resuming the issuance of tourist and family entry visas.
Qatar on Sunday reported 95 new COVID-19 cases and zero deaths in the span of 24 hours.
The total number of vaccine doses taken since the start of the vaccination campaign was 3,780,468.
Kuwait starts receiving vaccinated expatriates
After seven months of not being allowed to enter Kuwait, the Kuwaiti airport on Sunday has started receiving expatriates who have been vaccinated with two doses of the approved vaccine and a valid residence permit.
While vaccinated residents are allowed into the country, direct travel between India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal is still banned. Passengers travelling from those countries need to be quarantined in a non-banned country for 14-days before they arrive in Kuwait.
Abdullah Al-Bakhsh, the monitor of projects and planning in the engineering department of Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said in a statement that the first flights carrying expats arrived on Sunday midnight, reports Xinhua news agency.
The Kuwait Airport has received eight flights carrying 739 people on board in nine hours since the entry ban was lifted, he added.
The country decided in February to stop the entry of non-Kuwaitis to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.