The cost of the rapid PCR test at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport has been reduced from ₹3,900 to ₹3,500, officials said on Thursday, adding that the price was slashed after finding that these tests had more takers as compared to the RT-PCR tests, which costs only ₹500. What makes these rapid PCR tests more popular is the rapid turnaround time, as its name suggests — a person gets a report within 45-60 minutes as opposed to the four-hour waiting time for an RT-PCR test report.
Following the new guidelines issued by the Union ministry of health and family welfare on November 26, passengers from “high risk” countries — South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel and all European countries— are now required to take a Covid-19 test on their arrival at the airport, even if they are in possession of a negative test report, obtained within 72 hours prior to boarding, or are fully vaccinated. The heightened vigilance in the country is to keep at bay the Omicron variant of the Covid virus, which was declared a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO) recently.
