KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday issued an interim order to the government to suspend flights to and from the coronavirus-affected countries, including China, South Korea, Japan, among others.

The SC has asked the government to take necessary steps to prevent coronavirus from spreading further.

Advocate Purna Rajbanshi had on Sunday filed a writ petition at the SC to issue an interim order in the name of the government to curb the fast-spreading virus.

Hearing the writ petition, Justice Tej Bahadur KC issued the order to suspend flights from China, Japan, South Korea, Bahrain, and Iran, to this effect.

The SC has also ordered the government to take all necessary steps it can to control the new virus.

Meanwhile, the government on Monday has decided not to issue on-arrival visas for citizens of five countries worst hit by COVID-19 virus.

This decision will be implemented until the end of March this year in the first phase.

Those countries include China, South Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy.

The decision to this effect will be implemented from coming Friday.

Tourists coming to Nepal from most of the countries receive on-arrival visas at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu.

According to Ishwor Raj Paudel, Chief at the Department of Immigration (DoI), the citizens of the five countries — China, South Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy — now need to obtain visas from the Nepali missions in the concerned countries.