All travellers entering Bhutan will be quarantined in a designated quarantine facility for 2 weeks from today. Only minors and patients returning from treatment abroad will be home quarantined after an undertaking is signed with the parents or a guardian.
The home quarantine for minors and patients will be approved upon detailed inspection of the house and will be monitored by health officials daily.
While travellers entering Bhutan from Paro Airport will directly be quarantined, travellers across southern borders are asked to declare their travel history so as to be quarantined.
Earlier, travellers entering Bhutan were quarantined based on travel history and health status. However, the Health Minister said there have been many cases of travellers hiding their travel history. The Health Ministry has therefore decided to quarantine every traveller.
The Health Minister said such quarantine measures are taken up although it would cost huge expenditure because prevention is very important.
“If you look at the WHO guidelines and international recommendations, we are taking extreme precautions. The quarantine that we are taking up right now is supposed to be home quarantine as per WHO. We don’t want to land up like countries that have widespread of the virus. We want to prevent it as far as possible,” said Dechen Wangmo, the Health Minister.
It was also shared that quarantining travellers entering Bhutan from Southern borders are challenging as many hide their travel history.
“We have incidences in Jaigaon where people actually come from Nepal, Bodhgaya and other parts of the country. They send their luggage in the car, they walk across the gate and say, ‘I just went to the vegetable market.’ However, later we hear that they actually have spent days and weeks in other parts of the country,” Lyonpo added.
The government is also planning to start bus service for travellers arriving in Guwahati so that everyone can be taken to the quarantine facility. Day workers are exempted from being quarantined. However, strategies would change if there is an outbreak in those bordering towns.
Quarantining a person cost Nu 1000 a day just for food. With support from private individuals, the government is able to provide good facilities in the quarantine centres. Also, the government is seeking foreign support to sustain the quarantine centres.
Kinley Dem/Samten Dolkar
