Some of the airlines flying from India to UAE are reporting that the UAE government has blacklisted some of the COVID-19 test labs in India.
Air India Express, for example, currently provides a UAE Travel Update for passengers who want to fly from Indian cities to UAE.
On its update, it provided some guidelines from Dubai Civil Aviation Authority. It stated that all passengers, 12 years old and above need to show a valid negative COVID-19 PCR test report to immigration authorities in UAE.
To take the COVID-19 PCR test, Air India Express provided a list of certified labs in India for passengers to go to. The list is said to be approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Ministry of Health of India.
Air India Express advised, “The test result should be issued, duly signed and stamped in English in the ORIGINAL LETTERHEAD of the testing lab (name and contact details of the laboratory/ health institute providing the report is mandatory).”
“The test result should NOT be handwritten or have corrections. Kindly note that photocopies of the results will NOT be accepted. Damaged reports will not be accepted,” it added.
“Only NASOPHARYNGEAL and OROPHARYNGEAL swab test analysed by Real-Time RT-PCR (Open System) is accepted.”
In addition, Air India Express also warned passengers that as mandated by the Dubai Civil Aviation Authorities, UAE will not accept test results done by 5 of the labs:
Another Indian airline, SpiceJet, which flies from cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore and Madurai to Dubai also informed passengers that they must obtain a pre-travel negative COVID-19 test report from any of the ICMR approved or Pure Health approved laboratories before travelling to UAE.
In addition, it also listed the same names of the 5 labs blacklisted by UAE:
Singapore accepts any labs approved by ICMR of India
In the case of Singapore, on MOH’s webpage, it put up a list of “Recognised Competent Authorities and Accreditation Bodies for COVID-19 Testing” from around the world. For India, Singapore’s MOH also referred to the same list of labs approved by India’s ICMR. And on ICMR’s webpage, it put up a list which contained 4 of the 5 labs blacklisted by the UAE authorities.
That is to say, MOH seems to be comfortable with the above Indian COVID-19 test labs even though they have been blacklisted by UAE.
It’s not known if the Singapore authorities are currently admitting travellers from India who have their COVID-19 tests done by those labs blacklisted by UAE.
