A British Airways flight from the United Kingdom landed at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) early on Sunday with 273 passengers, including 32 children less than 10 years of age, and 16 crew members.
Four passengers were isolated after their pool test turned positive. Pool testing is a method by which multiple samples, up to a total of five, are tested together, in one single RT-PCR test. However, further tests came back negative.
Health Minister K. Sudhakar told presspersons on Sunday that the samples had been sent to NIMHANS for further RT-PCR tests.
Among the passengers, 146 were male and 95 female. After their arrival at the airport, swab tests were collected by health officials.
This is the first flight to land at KIA from the U.K., after the Union government announced a temporary suspension of all passenger flights between the two countries on December 23.
The Minister said, “Barring children, swab tests were collected of all the passengers. There were 16 crew members on the flight, and they too have undergone tests.”
As per the SoP, passengers were stamped with inedible link. The stamp reads ‘U K Passenger’ and also mentions the arrival date.
“Authorities concerned at the airport collected all the required details from the passengers coming from the U.K., including their phone numbers, home address, and other information. Those who do not have local numbers can also buy a SIM card by providing their documents at the airport,” said the Minister.
Arrangements had been made by Bangalore International Airport Ltd. (BIAL) for passengers to wait until the test reports were received, said a spokesperson
