MUMBAI: Air India, India’s national carrier, has banned Covid-19 tests done with point-of-care systems such as TrueNat and CBNAAT for passengers travelling to the United Arab Emirates, denying many of them boarding. The decision comes after some passengers tested positive for Covid-19 upon landing in the UAE while their test reports from India were negative. All UAE-bound passengers must now get tested through the RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction) method, considered the gold standard.
Negative test results will be accepted only from Indian Council of Medical Research, Pure Health and Micro Health labs and the tests should be taken 96 hours before boarding, Air India said in an advisory.

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