Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Security Division Dr Moeed Yousaf Thursday said the screening process of all outbound passengers would be started from Saturday (June 27).
In a media briefing at National Command and Operation Centre ( NCOC), he said only healthy passengers would be allowed to board the outgoing flights.
He asked the ailing passengers to avoid taking risk of travelling as the sick passengers would not be allowed to go abroad.
A passenger would have to fill a health form before leaving abroad and each passenger would have to follow standard operating procedure (SOPs), Moeed said.
He said the passengers going to other countries should comply with their rules of respective country and conduct COVID-19 test, if required by their destination country.
He said over 200,000 stranded Pakistanis would be brought back to their native country in next two to three weeks.
“From 40,000 to 45,000 stranded Pakistanis will return to their native country every week through 270 flights,” the special assistant said.
This would be a commercial operation and government would monitor the whole operation. The priority was to help bringing back the labours stranded abroad mostly in Gulf countries.
He said some 200,000 Pakistanis were stranded in various countries. Over 100,000 stranded Pakistanis had so far returned to their native country.
The COVID-19 testing of returning Pakistanis had already been stopped at airports since June 20. Instead each passenger is required 14 days of mandatory home quarantine on return. The provinces has the mechanism to monitor and track the home quarantined passengers and deal with the suspected patients accordingly.
Brushing aside the allegations that overseas Pakistanis were instrumental in spreading COVID-19 in Pakistan, he said according to latest analysis, 97 percent Pakistanis have been infected by local coronavirus carriers.
