COVID: Turkey lifts 14-day quarantine rule for fully vaccinated passengers from India

Relaxing the COVID-19 restrictions for travellers, Turkey has declared on Saturday that fully vaccinated people from India will no longer require a mandatory 14-day quarantine. The Turkish Embassy in New Delhi informed that this has come into effect from September 4, which will ease travel restrictions for fully vaccinated travellers aged 12 and above. He further explained that this rule implies people travelling from India or those who stayed in India in the last 14 days. However, a traveller should have been vaccinated at least 14 days before the date of travel. It should be noted here that apart from WHO-approved vaccines, the vaccines approved by the Turkish Government like Pfizer BioNTech, Sputnik V and Sinovac are covered under this exemption. Meanwhile, to be exempt from the quarantine, fully vaccinated travellers must submit their PCR test report not older than 72 hours before the journey. 

Non-vaccinated travellers have to undergo a 10-day quarantine 

However, it is mandatory to undergo quarantine for ten days for non-vaccinated travellers in a hotel or a location mentioned in the declaration. The one who has been vaccinated with Covishield will be allowed to travel to Turkey, whereas travellers vaccinated with Covaxin will only be allowed to visit the country once the vaccine gets a nod from the WHO. Notably, despite the pandemic, the tourist inflow numbers in Turkey were recorded at 11.9 million between the period of January to July. Out of this, at least 4.3 million international visitors visited only in July this year. According to Turkey's health ministry, non vaccinated people or people with only first dose constitute nearly 80-90% of COVID-19 cases and death in the country, reported Daily News. 

62% of Turkey's population are fully vaccinated

Speaking to reporters on Friday, September 3, Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca urged people to get vaccinated as soon as possible to avoid getting infected by the virus. Presenting the data, he said that 81% of the nearly 5,00,000 active cases are among people who were not fully vaccinated. He pointed out that most of the COVID positive people in the country are aged between 15 to 45, reported Daily News. 79% of people above the age of 18 have taken the first dose, whereas 62% of people are fully inoculated in the country. Health Minister Koca also claimed that Turkey is only second to Germany to administer the most vaccine jabs among all European countries. According to official figures, Turkey has administered more than 95 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since January 2021, reported Daily News.

(With inputs from ANI)

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