NEW DELHI, Aug 21:
Fourteen passengers who travelled from Delhi to Hong Kong on an Air India flight on August 14 have tested positive for COVID-19 till Thursday, the Hong Kong government said.
Due to this incident, Air India’s passenger flights have been barred from landing in Hong Kong till August-end, it added on Friday.
A passenger from India can arrive in Hong Kong only if he or she has a COVID-19 negative certificate from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, according to the rules issued by the Hong Kong government in July.
In a statement on Friday, a spokesperson of the Department of Health of the Hong Kong government said, “A flight operated by Air India (AI314) arriving Hong Kong from India on August 14 had 11 passengers confirmed to have infected with COVID-19.”
As a result, the department invoked the “Prevention and Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances and Travellers) Regulation (Cap. 599H) on August 17 to prohibit landing of passenger flights operated by Air India for two weeks from August 18 to 31 in Hong Kong”, the spokesperson noted.
“As of August 20, a total of 14 passengers on that flight were confirmed to have infected with COVID-19,” he added.
The statement did not elaborate if these 14 passengers had COVID-negative certificates with them from the tests done 72 hours prior to their journey, as required by the aforementioned rules.
Besides India, a pre-flight COVID-19 negative test result certificate is mandatory for all passengers coming from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa and the US, according to the Hong Kong government’s rules.
An airline operating a flight to Hong Kong from any of these nine countries has to submit a form before departure stating that all passengers on board have COVID-19 negative certificates, as per the rules. (PTI)
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