Burundi government last week announced that the days of travelers arriving into the country mainly through Melchior Ndadaye International airport has been reduced from 7 to 4 days.
Burundi’s health minister Thaddee Ndikumana said that after reviewing the state of the pandemic in the country, “we found it necessary to reduce the days of passengers arriving in the country from seven to four days.”
In January this year Burundi government imposed strict measures to curb the spread of covid-19 which included closure of borders, mass testing, social distancing, and closure of night clubs country wide.
According to the covid-19 measures imposed by the government earlier this, passengers arriving at Melchior Ndadaye International airport were required to pay $100 for a covid-18 test. Then transferred to a pre-booked hotel for seven days, on the sixth day of quarantine a test is done and cleared to leave the quarantine on the seventh day.
However with now four days for passengers on arrival to be quarantined after testing negative for covid-19, Burundi’s minister health minister said that on the third day another covid-19 test is conducted prior to their release.
Since March 31, 2020 when the first case of Covid-19 was announced in Burundi, more than fifteen thousand people were tested for the virus, more than two thousand people tested positive for the virus.
Leaving the country with the overall positive rate at 1.50% which remains below the infection control threshold of 5%, according to the government the number of deaths caused by the pandemic stands at 6.
No new case of health worker infection was reported in the past 28 days. A total of 36 health workers tested positive for coronavirus since last year according to the Burundian authority.