Abu Dhabi (UAE) | Jagran News Desk: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Saturday that it will resume issuing visas from Monday for all the tourists who are fully vaccinated. The announcement comes before Dubai hosts the delayed Expo 2020 trade fair. The decision is taken amid a reduction in Covid-19 infection in the oil-rich Gulf country as it reported less than 1,000 cases a day last week for the first time in three months, AFP reported.

However, tourists will have to go through a mandatory RT-PCR test at the airport.

“The decision applies to citizens of all countries, including those arriving from previously banned countries,” said the official WAM news agency.

“Passengers arriving on tourist visas must take a mandatory PCR test at the airport,” it added.

Those who are visiting the oil-rich Gulf country would have to be fully vaccinated with the Covid vaccines approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which are: AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, Sinopharm and Sinovac.

Travellers, who wish to receive the benefits given to the vaccinated people in the UAE, can enrol for vaccination via the ICA platform or Al Hosn application. Meanwhile, rules for people who are not vaccinated, including exempted categories, remain in place as per the new UAE travel guideline.

Since the UAE scrapped arrivals from countries including India, Pakistan, and Nigeria, it has been slowly easing the travelling rules. The biggest cities in the country, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, have given a go-ahead to the residents to return earlier this month.

Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, has been more cautious, opening up to some visitors only in December. The UAE has so far recorded more than 715,000 cases of Covid-19 infection, including 2,036 deaths.

Posted By: Mallika Mehzabeen