Saudi Arabia has eased travel restrictions for the pilgrims from Pakistan intending to perform Umrah by revising the Covid-19 guidelines, after the Pakistan Government has shown significance improvement in the infections and good vaccination rate..
The development coincided with the national positivity rate dropping to 5.34 per cent across the country, where less than 3,000 cases were reported in a day after a one-month hiatus.
According to the fresh guidelines for pilgrims from Pakistan intending to perform Umrah, at the time of departure the travellers will be required to submit only a negative PCR test report that should not be more than 48 hours old.
The new directives will apply with effect from Feb 16 to all people intending to perform Umrah regardless of their vaccination or immunity status, Radio Pakistan reported.
A National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) document available with Dawn mentioned seven vaccines — Sinopharm, Sinovac, PakVac or Cansino, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Sputnik — were being administered to people across the country. It showed that 68pc population is vaccine eligible, with 153,615,747 (153.6m) of 228,567,704 (228.5m) people being eligible for vaccine.
