Nigeria will place international passengers who evade COVID-19 tests on the travel watch list, an official said on Monday.
The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, at a briefing in Abuja yesterday, said this while announcing that the Nigerian government had introduced new COVID-19 protocols for travellers.
News Central reports that Nigeria reopened its airspace for international travels last Saturday.
Aliyu said passengers coming into Nigeria must have undergone Polymerase Chain Reaction test for COVID-19 before departing the other country and also undergo another test after in Nigeria.
While only travellers with negative PCR results would be allowed into Nigeria, Aliyu said any airline who failed to ensure that its passengers present negative results risks being fined $3,500 per passenger.
The PTF also warned travellers against shunning the second test to be conducted from seven days after their arrival, threatening that the “Nigerian Immigration Service could suspend their passports or put them on the travel watch list.”
Aliyu said, “We will be continuing with the process of requesting for a negative PCR result from all passengers boarding to travel to Nigeria. This COVID-19 test must be PCR test. We will not accept any other result. We are concerned about the quality of some of the results and the discrepancy we are getting when passengers are subsequently tested in the country.
“For this reason, the protocol that has just been approved will be reviewed after four weeks and we will also be looking at the level of discrepancy between negative and positive results, with a view to developing a list of accredited laboratories for countries that we frequently receive travellers from.”
“We are narrowing the period of validity for the PCR test from the current 14 days to seven days, from 29th of August. Preferably, the PCR test should be done as close as possible to the point of departure for Nigeria, preferably within 48 to 72 hours, but we will still accept results that are valid for seven days.”
Aliyu stated that travellers arriving Nigerian would pay for their PCR tests. According to him, Aliko Dangote Foundation has been footing the bill of tests conducted on the over 13,000 stranded Nigerians evacuated by the Federal Government from different parts of the world.