Six international passengers arrived from ‘at risk’ countries – which include those that have confirmed cases of the highly transmissible Omicron strain – have tested Covid positive.

The Maharashtra Health Department on Wednesday said all six are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and their samples have been sent for genome sequencing. Contact tracing for all six passengers is underway.

Three of the six have been traced to the Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali and Meera-Bhayandar areas, with the fourth traced to Pune. Two others – arrivals from Nigeria – have been traced to Pimpri-Chinchwad.

From Wednesday, airports in India have enforced strict quarantine and testing rules for passengers from ‘at risk’ countries to avoid spreading of the virus in the nation.
The new rules include mandatory tests for these passengers – they cannot leave the airport without the results being declared. A negative test will have to be followed by seven days of home quarantine.

All the international passengers travelling to the state must submit a declaration listing the countries visited in the last 15 days, which will be cross-checked by immigration; false information will make them liable for action under the Disaster Management Act.