Tour Operators Want Fully Vaccinated Passengers exempted from Covid-19 Tests

Tour operators have asked the ministry of health to exempt fully Vaccinated passengers and those with genuine PCR tests of 72 hours be exempted from the Mandatory Covid-19 tests.

Recently government directed all incoming passengers to undergo mandatory Covid-19 tests on arrival at Entebbe International Airport.

Last week, President Yoweri Museveni launched the Entebbe International Airport Covid-19 Laboratories, to help carry out the mandatory tests and screening of arriving passengers.

However, when the cabinet directive (testing all incoming passengers) was effected, their was chaos at Entebbe airport which the ministry of health attributed to the manual delivery of covid-19 results.

The ministry further revealed that the situation was contained and all the information was to be relayed digitally through airport screens, Emails, and WhatsApp.

However, speaking at a press conference in Kampala, Isa Kato, a tour operator, asked the health ministry to benchmark what other countries are doing to avoid frustrating travelers, with mandatory Covid-19 tests.

Kato urged the ministry to allow those fully vaccinated, with PCR tests of 72 hours be exempted from the mandatory Covid-19 tests.

“Travelers who are fully vaccinated and are holding a negative PCR test result should not be tested again,” He said.

Kato advised the ministry to focus on those from ‘Red List’ countries, and also use antigen/ rapid tests.

“The focus should be on travelers from ‘Red List’ countries but also let them be tested using Rapid Testing so that in 15 minutes people are going away from the airport,” Kato said.

Kato revealed that the delays and frustration led to the cancellation of some trips to Uganda citing frustration at Entebbe International Airport.

“Tourists keep canceling and advising others not travel to Uganda citing confusion and gross frustration at Entebbe International Airport,” he said

However addressing Parliament on Tuesday, the minister of health, Jane Ruth Aceng said that effective November 5, arriving passengers at Entebbe Airport will be allowed to go home after testing.

“We shall allow travelers to go home and self-isolate after sample collection until they receive their results” she said, adding “NITA Uganda will develop a tracking system within two days to enable tracking of the on average five cases per day. Travelers will be required to provide adequate information for easy traceability.”