The Ministry of Public Health announced new travel requirements for all travellers (citizens, residents and visitors) coming from China to Qatar as of Tuesday evening.
All travellers coming to Qatar from China, regardless of vaccination or immunity status, must present a negative PCR result taken within 48 hours of the time of departure to Qatar, the Ministry of Public Health said.
The updated Covid-19 policy is a temporary measure that has been made to safeguard the passengers coming to Qatar and the community against the virus, with China currently experiencing widespread circulation of Covid-19 within its population, the ministry noted.
Quarantine is no longer mandatory for all travellers coming from abroad. However, travellers, who are infected with the virus after they arrive in Qatar, must undergo health isolation in accordance with the country's procedures. It is also no longer mandatory for citizens and residents of Qatar to take a rapid antigen test upon arrival in the country, the ministry added.
Meanwhile, a Reuters report from Brussels said European Union government health officials will hold talks tomorrow on a coordinated response to the surge in Covid-19 infections in China, the Swedish EU presidency said Monday, after December talks concluded with no decisions on the matter.
At a similar meeting on Dec. 29, held online among over 100 representatives from EU governments, EU health agencies and the World Health Organisation, Italy urged the rest of the EU to follow its lead and test travellers from China for Covid, with Beijing poised to lift travel restrictions on January 8.
But others in the 27-nation EU said they saw no need to do so despite China's decision to loosen its pandemic restrictions amid a wave of new infections.
"There is a scheduled Integrated Political Crisis Response meeting on Wednesday, January 4, for an update of the Covid-19 situation in China and to discuss possible EU measures to be taken in a coordinated way," a spokeswoman for the Swedish presidency of the EU said.
The European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said in a letter to EU governments on Dec. 29 they should consider immediately scaling up genomic sequencing of Covid-19 infections and monitoring of waste water, including at airports, to detect any new variants, given the surge in infections in China.