ALGERIA will impose strict health measures on passengers when it partially resumes international flights next month, the prime minister’s office said yesterday.

The North African country last week said it would reopen air borders on June 1, but with only five flights a day from and to three local airports.

Passengers must have a negative result for COVID-19 from an RT-PCR test dated less than 36 hours before the date of travel to Algeria, the prime minister’s office said.

All passengers would be quarantined for five days in hotels at their expense, and the quarantine would be extended to 10 days for those who test positive for COVID-19 at the end of the first five days, it added.

“These conditions must be met before boarding,” it said in a statement.

Algeria closed its borders in March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic spread. It resumed domestic flights in December last year. It has so far reported 127,107 coronavirus cases, including 3,426 deaths.

Source - Thomson Reuters Foundation