Keralites returning from UAE can opt for 1 of 3 Covid tests

From Dubai, passengers are given a 'Fit to Fly' sticker on their passports from the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), following their IgG/ IgM tests.

All passengers arriving in Kerala, including the ones on the Vande Bharat Mission flights will have to now furnish a Covid-19 negative test result before departure, K Ellangovan IAS, Principal Secretary, Government of Kerala, told Khaleej Times.
Passengers can opt for one of three tests: The RT-PCR, the TrueNat test, or the antibody test (IgG/ IgM), said Ellangovan. The decision to make a negative certificate mandatory for all returnees was taken at the cabinet meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala's capital, on Wednesday.
At airports in the UAE, IgG/ IgM rapid tests are conducted for passengers. However, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said during his daily press briefing on Wednesday, June 17, that the rapid tests conducted in UAE airports are effective. He said, "Other Gulf countries, should conduct similar tests in coordination with respective health ministries and Indian missions in these countries must initiate action."
From Dubai, passengers are given a 'Fit to Fly' sticker on their passports from the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), following their IgG/ IgM tests.
During the cabinet meeting it was decided the State will ask the Centre to make it mandatory for all passengers to furnish a COVID19 negative test that is at least 72 hours old, explained Ellangovan. The State has said Indian diplomatic missions in the concerned country has to arrange this facility at the airports.
Embassy needs to provide service: Kerala CM
Commenting on the issue during his daily Covid-19 press briefing on Wednesday, Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala Chief Minister, said, "Indian embassies abroad must facilitate tests for expatriates wishing to return to India. People do not need to go to hospitals for this purpose, rapid testing can be done elsewhere too."
He added, "Also when I said Embassies should do the test, I did not mean that the test should be done in the Embassy grounds. They should provide facilities for those who want to travel. See, when two-three passengers who are sick travel along with people who are healthy, they put the lives of all passengers on the flight at great risk. We must take this into consideration."
However, officials with the Consulate General of India in Dubai has said they have no received such an intimation from the Indian Central or the Kerala state government. On Friday, Kerala government said only passengers on charter flights to Kerala were required to produce a 'Covid-19 negative' test result.
'Any test will do'
Ellangovan said the test does not have to be the more accurate Reverse Transcription - Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). "It can be one of the three. The RT-PCR, the TrueNat test, or the antibody test (IgG/ IgM) test would do as well. We need proof that the passenger has received a negative result 72-hours prior to his or her departure," he said.
TrueNat is a privately developed test kit that works on the same principle as RT-PCR, commonly used for tuberculosis and HIV testing. Ellangovan said, "The result should be a recent phenomenon. For example, the test result cannot be a month-old."
In the UAE, data of people who test for the COVID19 coronavirus are updated via the Al Hosn mobile application. When quizzed if a copy of the result on the app would suffice as proof, Ellangovan said, "It is hard for me to comment because I have not seen the app. A copy of the app result would also do, as long as it is authentic."
Neeraj Agarwal, Consul - Press, Information and Culture at the Consulate said, "When Kerala made it mandatory to get Covid-19 tests for charter flights, we informed all the charterers who received approvals to fly. They are carrying out the IgG/IgM tests for now." However, Agarwal said the Mission has not received any intimation about Covid-19 tests being mandatory on Vande Bharat Mission flights.
dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com 

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