People who arrive from countries in Africa not subject to a ban will still have to quarantine for 14 days and be tested repeatedly for Covid-19, amid worldwide concern over the new Omicron variant of the virus.
Apisamai Srirangson, a spokeswoman the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, confirmed on Monday that travellers would not be allowed into Thailand if coming from eight African nations, effective on Dec 1.
The countries are Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Dr Apisamai said people arriving from other African countries would be quarantined at specific facilities for 14 days and be tested for Covid-19 three times. They could not enter the sandbox quarantine programme.
Those who had arrived since Nov 15 and had been discharged from quarantine before 14 days were being traced and monitored until the 14th day after their arrival. There were nearly 200 of them, she said.
People coming from African countries had not been allowed to enter Thailand under the Test and Go programme.
Dr Apisamai said the Omicron variant of Covid-19 had been detected in the eight African countries and in Europe (Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Belgium, Czech Republic and Denmark), Asia (Hong Kong and Israel) and in Australia.
Thailand had banned arrivals (except Thais) from the eight African countries from this Wednesday out of concern over the Omicron variant.
Those who arrived from southern African countries before then would be quarantined for 14 days and during this time be given three RT-PCR tests for Covid-19.
Dr Apisamai said from Nov 1 to 27, 1,007 people had arrived in Thailand from southern Africa and none had tested positive for Covid-19 during their quarantine.
