KATHMANDU: The government has decided to ban the entry of citizens and travelers from nine countries, including South Africa and Hong Kong, in view of the latest COVID-19 variant ‘Omicron’.
A cabinet meeting held on Monday decided to ban entry of passengers arriving from and transiting South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Malawi and Hong Kong. Travelers who have visited one of the nine countries in the past three weeks will also be restricted from entering Nepal.
Sources said the ban for travelers arriving and transiting these countries would come into effect from Friday midnight. Those already on their way to Nepal from the aforementioned nine countries will have to go through a mandatory quarantine.
The cabinet also decided not to issue on-arrival visas to travelers arriving from the nine countries as a preventive measure to stop the omicron variant from entering Nepal.
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