Ahead of increasing Coronavirus cases in Pakistan, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has on Tuesday modified its standard operating procedures (SOPs) for international passengers which declared seven laboratory tests equivalent to PCR-based test of COVID-19.
The civil aviation authority stated in its notification that seven tests will be considered as equivalent to PCR testing for detection of COVID-19.
Passengers holding negative reports of any of the seven tests will be considered as fulfilling the requirements of RT-PCR testing in accordance with the defined regulations.
The seven tests are listed below:
- Real Time RT-PCR for Covid-19
- Real Time RT-PCR for SARS-Cov-2
- RT-PCR for COVID-19
- RT-PCR for SARS-Cov-2
- PCR for COVID-19
- PCR for SARS-Cov-2
- Xpert Xpress SARS-Cov-2 or SARS-Cov-2 GeneXpert
The new version of SOPs was sent to airlines, operators, ground handling agents, authorized flights permission agents and directed to inform passengers who are willing to travel to Pakistan.
Earlier on Monday, CAA had banned the entry of visitors to all airports across the country to curb the spread of second wave of the deadly pandemic.
According to the CAA, drivers will be allowed to drop passengers at the airports’ drop lines and those coming to pick travellers up will be required to wait in their vehicles until flyers’ arrival.
