Express News Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Visiting the state from West Asia, the UK and Europe from February 22 midnight will be more cumbersome as the airports will follow stringent guidelines to screen passengers for new strains of Covid-19. Apart from carrying a Covid-19 negative certificate, the passengers have to undergo molecular tests on arrival. According to health department officials, it would be a challenge as it is beyond the state’s capacity to carry out such a large number of sample testing.
“The airport in Thiruvananthapuram gets around 1,000 passengers from West Asia on a peak day. The numbers would be more than double in Kochi airport. It is a bit of a challenge to conduct so many tests,” said an officer. According to him, the samples would be outsourced to private laboratories to speed up the testing process. However, the passengers will have to pay for the PCR test as per the guidelines.