Egypt Announces New Restrictions of Entry at Airports, SeaPorts, Land Crossings

On Saturday, Egypt announced new coronavirus-related restrictions at airports, seaports, and land crossings, with the country witnessing a significant surge in daily infections and reporting the highly infectious Omicron as the dominant variant currently.

Starting today, Egyptian and foreign travelers to Egypt, except children below the age of 12, will require certificates of coronavirus vaccination or negative results of coronavirus tests, Acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said in a statement on Thursday.

Coronavirus tests have to be taken within 72 hours of arrival to the Egyptian ports.

A vaccination certificate has to show that the traveler had received the single-dose vaccine or the last dose of the two-shot vaccines at least 14 days before arrival, Abdel-Ghaffar noted.

Travelers will also have to show they took vaccines approved by the World Health Organisation or the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA), Abdel-Ghaffar said.

The EDA has granted emergency approval for all the coronavirus vaccines of Sinopharm, Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.

If travelers are not vaccinated, they must present a negative coronavirus test from among those accredited by the Egyptian health ministry, which are PCR test or Antigen Rapid Test or ID Now test.

However, the country will not accept ID NOW COVID-19 tests from travelers coming from South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Eswatini, the minister noted.