March 15: India has adopted a slew of measures including visa restriction, issuing new travel advisory and closing the international borders in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, which has already claimed two lives in India and more than 5000 globally.

However, these measures do not currently have any impact on normal travel of Nepalese nationals to India, either by air or by existing land routes, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said in a recent statement.

“Existing travel arrangements for Nepalese nationals will, in other words, remain unaffected,” the statement added.

However, there will be intensified health inspections at all entry points and any traveller, Indian, Nepalese or from third countries presenting COVID-19 symptoms or with recent travel history to one of seven countries worst hit by COVID-19 outbreak may possibly be subject to quarantine if required, the statement added.

According to the Indian Embassy, the current measures are solely for the purposes of managing public health and safety.

“Keeping in view the ramifications of current global spread of COVID-19 on public health and safety, certain health safety measures are being implemented for foreign and Indian nationals entering into and exiting from India,” the statement further said, adding, “The primary intention is to ensure the health and  safety of both Indian as well as foreign nationals with bare minimum inconvenience to travel and mobility.”

The embassy added that these measures would be continuously reviewed depending on the evolving situation.

The Ministry of Health and Family  Welfare of India had recently issued a revised ‘travel advisory’ while the Bureau of Immigration of India had issued ‘visa restrictions related to COVID-19’ on

March 11 to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which has already been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).