Pakistan revises COVID-19 policy for inbound passengers

Islamabad: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has revised inbound policy from Thursday (February 24) keeping in view the downward trend of the COVID-19 situation in Pakistan.  

According to an official press release, pre-boarding negative PCR has been abolished for fully vaccinated inbound travellers. 

However, non-vaccinated individuals over 12 years will require pre-boarding negative PCR. 

Full vaccination is mandatory for all inbound passengers and passengers below 12 years of age are exempted from mandatory vaccination. 

Passengers between 12-18 years of age are allowed to travel without mandatory vaccination till 31st of the next month.

The NCOC also announced that Rapid Antigen Test will be conducted on arrival for deportees and non-vaccinated pedestrians at border terminals and positive cases will be home quarantined for 10 days.

In the meantime, Pakistan reported 1,232 new coronavirus infections, a new daily record, with authorities linking the spike with the Omicron variant of virus.  

Pakistan's daily COVID caseload mostly hover between the 2,000-4,000 range for close to a month now as the country continues its fight against fifth wave of the pandemic. 

As many as 1,409,515 patients have recovered from the disease.