Amritsar: After the threat of the new Covid-19 variant of Omicron, 65 RT-PCR engines that have been quickly installed at Amritsar airport for passenger testing arriving from the countries ‘At Risk’.
The airport has also been a dedicated separate counter for registration for Covid-19 testing to avoid crowding.
So far, three passengers, who have arrived from Italy, has been found positive Covid.
V K Seth Airport Director on Thursday that every week, they receive seven flights from England and Italy, both ‘at risk’.
“One weekly flight arrived from London and Birmingham while five weekly flights arrived from Milan or Roma carrying around 250 passengers on each flight,” he said.
He said that according to the guidelines, every passenger coming from the state ‘risky’ must undergo a Covid-19 test and for that, airport management has been tied with a private laboratory and has installed a rapid 65 RT-PCR engine that gives results in about 40 minutes .
He said that to avoid congestion at the airport, management has dedicated seven counters to registration of tests and after the sample collection.
Passengers are then allowed to complete the immigration formalities, collect luggage, and cleanse customs that take around 25 to 30 minutes.
“When passengers are free of these formalities, the testing report arrives, the maximum passenger must wait for only 10 or 20 minutes,” Claimed Seth.
He also claimed that the airport administration cleared Arri International flight Ving from a ‘risky’ country carrying around 250 passengers within two and a half hours.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, one passenger, a resident of Amritsar, who arrived from Italy, was tested positive for Covid-19.
Previously, the duo of the men had also been tested positive for Covid at the airport.
Their sample has been sent for genome sequencing.