Delhi Airport Increases Testing Capacity At International Arrival
The crowd at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi Sunday
The Delhi airport on Monday announced that it updated testing capacity at international arrival with deployment of 120 Rapid PCR machines, taking hourly capacity to 500-600 per hour with a TAT of less than 60 minutes.
Further, there is provision for approximately 500 RT-PCR tests per hour. This additional capacity will further smoothen the international arrival process.
Meanwhile, Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia on Monday called a high-level meeting over the mismanagement of crowd at Delhi Airport. The meeting was attended by officials from Delhi Airport, Airports Authority of India, Immigration department and Covid-19 testing lab company, reported news agency ANI.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya also reviewed RTPCR testing facilities for passengers coming from “at-risk” countries at Indira Gandhi International Airport on Sunday.
Following the visit, he said that 35 rapid RT-PCR testing machines are functional within Terminal III of the airport.
“With this, passengers screening and testing time can be reduced to even 30 minutes,” tweeted Mandaviya.
Meanwhile, 21 cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 have been reported across the country. Out of these 21 cases, nine have been reported in Rajasthan, eight in Maharashtra, two in Karnataka and one each in Delhi and Gujarat.
The new variant of COVID-19 was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 25. According to the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on November 9 this year.
On November 26, the WHO named the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, which has been detected in South Africa, as ‘Omicron’. The WHO has classified Omicron as a ‘variant of concern’.Dozens of countries have imposed travel restrictions on the southern African nations since the mutation was discovered.
