The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has explained the Ehteraz app status for passengers returning to Qatar from low-risk countries.

"Passengers arriving from low-risk countries have their Ehteraz status set to yellow for the full duration of their seven-day home quarantine," according to an infographic issued by the MoPH through social media on Thursday.

Such individuals must perform a swab test on Day 6 and their Ehteraz status will not turn green until Day 7 after the swab test has been performed and a negative result verified, the infographic explains.

"Please note that returning passengers cannot have the swab test earlier than Day 6," it continues. "This process helps reduce the risk of returning travellers bringing the virus back into Qatar and passing it on to other members of the community."

It was also recently announced that a new Ehteraz function is set to be introduced in mid-September to support people undergoing home quarantine.

In cases where individuals reside in a location without a ‘blue plate’ listing their national address, or in cases where they choose to quarantine in a location different from their primary registered residence, they will be able to use the map function to select their quarantine location.

Individuals will only have the ability to select the home quarantine location once. After their initial selection, the location will be locked for the duration of the quarantine.

Launched at the end of April, Ehteraz is a highly advanced application that has been developed to help keep residents of Qatar safe from Covid-19 and support the hard work of the frontline public health teams in the fight against the pandemic.

Answers to common questions related to Ehteraz can be found both within the application itself and on the Ministry of Public Health Covid-19 website. Additionally, people can raise technical issues with the support team by calling 109, or for more general Covid-19 queries, the support team on 16000 is available to answer queries.

Dr Yousef al-Maslamani, chair of the Ehteraz Joint Taskforce Committee and Hamad General Hospital medical director, had said recently that with Qatar entering Phase 4 of the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, Ehteraz is playing an important role in keeping Qatar’s population safe.