Pakistan removes UK from travel ban list

Under the new directives, the UK has been removed from the list of banned countries and has been switched from category C to category B.

The Aviation Authority has also issued new SOPs for international flights and chartered flights.

Under the new SOPs, a new list of Category C countries has been framed according to which Category C includes 22 countries, including South Africa, Colombia, Zimbabwe and Ghana.

Passengers from Category B countries were required to take the COVID-19 test 72 hours before arriving in Pakistan and now the UK has also been included in Category B.

According to the notification, the new SOPs will be effective from April 6 to 20.

Note that the Civil Aviation Authority has created three categories for international flights.

In the A-category, 20 countries have been included which are exempted from submitting the COVID-19 test for entry into Pakistan.

The list includes Saudi Arabia, Australia, Bhutan, China, Fiji, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mongolia, Mauritania, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Singapore, Tajikistan, Trinidad and Tobago and Vietnam.

Category-C includes countries from which travellers are completely banned, but will be allowed to travel after special permits.

While all other countries have been included in the B-category and passengers coming from these countries have been required to take the COVID-19 test before coming to Pakistan.

On the other hand, the United Kingdom had imposed a travel ban by including Pakistan in the red list a day earlier.

UK in the latest move to curb COVID-19 spread had restricted the passengers’ inflow from Pakistan, the Philippines, Kenya and Bangladesh.

According to UK Transport Department (DFT), British and Irish residents arriving from the Philippines, Pakistan, Kenya and Bangladesh will be required to self-isolate in a government-approved ‘hotel quarantine’ facility for 10 days starting from April 9, 4 am and would take a COVID-19 test on day two and day eight of their self-isolation.

The latest update means that passengers arriving from or who have transited through these countries will be banned from entering unless they are a British or Irish national or are a resident in the UK.

The passengers would not be allowed to shorten their quarantine period regardless of their test results, and will also not be able to end it early through the Test to Release scheme.

According to DFT, the measures are aimed at reducing the risk posed by new coronavirus variants – such as the South Africa strain and are based on advice from the Government-funded Joint Biosecurity Centre.

The data showed the majority of cases of South Africa variant detected in England so far were linked to international travel and that very few are thought to have come from Europe, the department added.

The DFT said: “The Government has made it consistently clear it will take decisive action if necessary to contain the virus and has added these destinations to the red list to protect public health.”

There will be 40 countries on the ‘red list’ once the four countries join on April 9.

It is expected that the UK government will also launch a ‘traffic light’ system to determine restrictions on individual countries and regions.