Home quarantine mandatory for partially vaccinated arrivals in Saudi Arabia

Cairo: Travellers arriving in Saudi Arabia without completing their inoculation against COVID-19 with any of the approved vaccines in the kingdom will have to go into home quarantine, an official source at the Saudi Interior Ministry has said.

These people will undergo a coronavirus-detecting test 48 hours after arrival and the period of their domestic quarantine will end with a negative test result, the source added.

Children under the age of eight will be exempted from this test and their home quarantine will end 48 hours after arrival in the kingdom.

Violators of the rules will be liable to penalties imposed on infringing quarantine instructions, the source said.

According to Saudi law, violations of quarantine rules are punishable by a maximum fine of SR200,000 or jailing of up to two years or both penalties. Repeat offenders face double punishment.

If the violator is non-Saudi, he/she is punished by deportation from the kingdom and barred from re-entry for ever after carrying out the penalty ordered over the offence.

A five-day institutional quarantine is mandatory for expatriates and visitors arriving without obtaining any dose of the vaccines recognised in the kingdom.

The approved vaccines in Saudi Arabia are two doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as well as one dose of Johnson & Johnson.