The Karnataka government has mandated a seven-day home quarantine for passengers arriving in the state from six high risk countries – China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Amid a surge in infections in several countries, the state on Saturday revised its Covid-19 guidelines and said “international travellers from high-risk countries need to be home quarantined for 7 days from the date of their arrival.”
“Once tested positive, the infected people are to be treated and managed as per the State COVID protocol,” it said in a circular.
The directives came days after the Union health ministry mandated negative Covid RT-PCR reports of passengers prior to their departure from the above countries from January 1.
The civil aviation ministry has also directed airlines to modify their check-in systems for international passengers arriving from these countries as part of revised Covid-19 guidelines. It directed airlines to issue boarding passes to only those passengers who submit a self-declaration form on the Air Suvidha portal.
Several countries took similar steps last week, especially in increasing scrutiny on people coming from China over fears that the country may not be monitoring Sars-CoV-2 variants adequately, although the situation in most parts of the world – especially India – is stable and presents no cause for worry.
The Karnataka government said it issued the guidelines on the recommendations of the state’s Covid-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). On Saturday, the state reported 46 infections, taking the overall active cases to 342.
Last week, the state made it mandatory for citizens to wear masks, especially during New Year celebrations.
In its circular, the health department said that currently, about 30 to 40 cases are being reported in the state on a daily basis and the test positivity rate has been around .5% to 0.7% since five months.
If the passengers arriving in Karnataka from the high-risk countries are found symptomatic, they will be isolated at designated medical facilities for clinical management. If they test positive, their samples will be sent for genome sequencing, the guidelines said.
The state government also directed passengers to report to the local surveillance health team if they develop symptoms like fever, cough, cold, body ache, headache, loss of taste and smell, diarrhoea and breathing difficulty during home quarantine.
If children below 12 years of age, who are exempted from both pre-departure and post-arrival testing, develop symptoms on arrival or during the period of self-monitoring and home quarantine of next seven days, they should also follow the same protocol as above for adults, except that a parent/guardian in good health should accompany them and be the caregiver to the child during the period of isolation and treatment as applicable, the health department said.
If a passenger tests positive for Covid-19, their primary and secondary contacts would also be quarantined, within 24 hours of identification, at their homes or designated places, the guidelines said.
The new variant of concern – XBB and BF-7 – are spreading rapidly in few countries and a few cases are reported in India and Karnataka too, the circular said, adding that to sustain the gains achieved so far, it is necessary to trace, track and quarantine the primary and secondary contacts of Covid-19 positive persons, more effectively.
Public health inspecting officers, primary health care officers, community health officers and accredited social health activists (ASHA workers) will take up these activities at all primary health centres (PHCs) under the supervision of the medical officer of PHCs, the health department said. These staff would be acting as contact tracers and quarantine watchers, and will need to report their activities in the Contact Tracing app and Quarantine Watch app, both of which will soon be activated.
Further, the medical officer and team from each PHC should physically triage all Covid-19 positive persons. Tele-triaging should be initiated at the state level, and triaging information would be recorded in the Index app (BBMP limits) and in State Line List (for other districts), the circular said.
Source- Hindustan Times.
