publish time

05/11/2020

author name Arab Times

publish time

05/11/2020

KUWAIT CITY, Nov 5: While the economic sectors, especially the travel and tourism sector in the country, are waiting to resolve the bottleneck caused by the partial closure of the airport, an informed source revealed that the proposals of Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways, which were submitted to the Ministry of Health, regarding strengthening the procedures for normal return of air traffic in Kuwait, reducing the home quarantine period to one week, and opening the skies for countries that are banned but based on health measures, are still under study, reports Al-Qabas daily.

The source said, "A work team was formed after the two meetings between the Minister of Health, Dr. Basil Al-Sabah and representatives of the two airlines in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Central Agency for Information Technology, airlines, and specialists in information systems.

The proposals were discussed from two sides - the procedural side, and the technical side. The health authorities recommended that if the proposals are implemented, the passengers’ procedures should be automated and not manual, and that the medical laboratories that will conduct the passengers' swab tests have the ability to accept the numbers of arrivals into the country".

The source affirmed that the accredited medical laboratories have the ability to carry out 20,000 swab tests per day.

He said the representatives of the Ministry of Health have been provided with all requirements that enable them to automate the entry procedures for passengers according to the automated systems.

The source highlighted that the meetings witnessed discussion of developing some apps such as "Shlonek" and “COVID-19” in order to comply with the proposals related to the arrival of passengers, the swab procedures, and the release of test results.

Regarding the opinion of representatives of the health authorities about the proposals following their discussion, the source said there are positive data, but the proposals are still being studied.