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Italy extends Covid-19 travel ban to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well as India

Italy has banned travel from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka amid the coronavirus emergency in neighbouring India, as well as tightening quarantine rules for residents who have recently returned from one of those countries.

Italy extends Covid-19 travel ban to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well as India
Malpensa airport in Milan. Photo: Piero Cruciatti / AFP

In a new ordinance issued on April 29th, Health Minister Roberto Speranza extended Italy’s ban on arrivals from India to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in response to surging infections and a rapidly spreading new variant.

Under the new rules, only Italian citizens who live permanently in Italy are allowed to enter from any of the three countries. Previously foreign nationals resident in Italy had also been allowed to return.

READ ALSO: Italy bans arrivals from virus-hit India

The ordinance also tightens the quarantine rules for anyone returning from India, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, who must now spend ten days in a “Covid hotel” where they can be monitored by local health authorities. 

Anyone travelling from one of the three countries must also test negative for coronavirus no more than 48 hours before departure, get another test on arrival, and finally take a third test after ten days in isolation.

People who arrived in Italy from one of these countries, or transited through them, in the 14 days before the latest ordinance – so since April 15th – should also contact the local health authorities to get tested and self-isolate at home for ten days, followed by another test.

A medical worker waits to test arriving passengers at Malpensa Airport in Milan. Photo: Piero Cruciatti / AFP

The travel restrictions apply until at least May 15th.

The move comes amid record case numbers in India, which reported more than 3,000 deaths on Wednesday alone. The variant linked to hundreds of thousands of new cases per day is already confirmed to have reached Italy, with reports of cases in Tuscany and Veneto.

READ ALSO: Indian coronavirus variant detected in northern Italy

Twenty-three people tested positive for coronavirus on a flight from New Delhi that landed in Rome on Wednesday night, local authorities said, out of 223 aboard.

All passengers were taken into supervised quarantine at specially converted hotels or military facilities near the capital, Rai reported, including those who tested negative.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Greece, Italy to discuss rail ‘restart’ after tragedy: PM

Greece's Prime Minister on Friday said he would discuss with Italy safety improvements on Greek trains run by an Italian state company in the wake of last month's rail tragedy.

Greece, Italy to discuss rail 'restart' after tragedy: PM

“We will have the opportunity to discuss the way in which the Italian government…will be able to support the restart of Greece’s railways in a more active and substantial way,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters at a eurozone leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Mitsotakis said Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni had accepted an invitation to talks in Athens before the Greek general election in May.

“I believe we have the potential to jointly create a new future for our railways, whereby the Italian company will invest more in reliable, safer and faster trains” and Greece “will invest more in our network, its safety and its possible expansion”, Mitsotakis said.

Greece’s intercity trains went under private management in 2017, when state-owned Greek rail traffic services operator TrainOSE was privatised and sold to Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, becoming Hellenic Train.

Greek state company OSE still owns the tracks.

On February 28, two trains collided head-on after running on the same track for several kilometres (miles), killing 57 people. It was Greece’s worst ever rail disaster.

Most of the victims were university students returning from a long holiday weekend.

Greece’s transport minister resigned and the disaster sparked weeks of angry and occasionally violent protests, piling pressure on Mitsotakis’ conservative government ahead of the election.

The stationmaster on duty during the accident and three other railway officials have been charged and face possible life sentences.

But Greece’s rail watchdog found serious safety problems across the network, including inadequate basic training for critical staff.

Railway unions had long warned the network was underfunded, understaffed and accident-prone after a decade of spending cuts.

Mitsotakis said he would also discuss migration issues — a priority for both countries — with Meloni during her visit.

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