The Union Health Ministry has not issued any advisory making RT-PCR testing mandatory for travelers at the airport, a source in the ministry said on Thursday.
Notably, the ministry had eased the COVID-19 guidelines for international travelers and dropped earlier requirements for RT-PCR based testing of a random two per cent subset of travelers coming to India in the month of July.
On Wednesday, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya reviewed the Covid-19 preparedness and stressed on the need to be alert, and not to panic, amid the spike Covid-19 cases, and detection of JN.1 variant cases. A total of 21 JN.1 variant cases detected so far in the country.
Mandaviya assessed the current status and preparedness on Covid-19 and stressed on the need to be on the alert, but not to panic.
He noted that it is important to be prepared with mock drills of hospital preparedness, increased surveillance and effective communication with people, and asked to conduct mock drills in all hospitals once every three months.
As per the data of the Ministry, a total of 594 cases were detected in the country on Thursday. Active cases stands at 2,669.
Earlier this week, the Ministry issued an advisory asking the States and UTs to maintain a constant vigil on the situation besides ensuring adequate testing including higher number of RT-PCR tests, and send positive samples for genome sequencing to Indian SARS COV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) laboratories.