Bangladeshis, who entered Italy amid pandemic, did not carry fake Covid-19 negative certificates, the government clarified as Italy suspended flight from Dhaka along with 12 other countries till July 31.
The foreign ministry in a statement said that its attention has been drawn to the news published by some newspapers and broadcast by some news channels regarding detection of coronavirus among some Bangladeshi expatriates in Italy.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to flag that around 1,600 Bangladeshis, who went to Italy recently, did not carry fake Covid-19 negative certificates,” it said.
“The Italian government has not yet put any condition on carrying Covid-19 negative certificates for travelling to Italy though some of Bangladeshi passengers carried such certificates on their own just in case they required those subsequently,” it added.
“Fact of the matter is, among the (Italy bound Bangladeshi) passengers, only 33 carried Covid negative certificates and none from Regent Hospital or JKG. More importantly, Italy never required any passengers to carry a negative COVID certificate,” Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen also told journalists.
The foreign ministry statement also clarified that flights from Bangladesh, along with 12 other countries, have been suspended by the Italian authorities till July 31 while some media reported that flights are banned from Bangladesh to Italy till October 5.
However, it said, unfortunately, some Bangladeshis who travelled to Italy in the recent days did not follow the mandatory quarantine rule, and “probably a few of them might have spread the virus in the community”.
In the last one week, out of 5,000 tests, 65 Bangladeshis residents in the Lazzio region of Italy have been detected with coronavirus while Italian government has decided to conduct COVID19 tests for all Bangladeshis (around 30,000) living the area in coordination with the Bangladesh embassy in Rome, read the statement.
