Online Desk : The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) on Monday issued a 15-point guidelines to prevent the highly contagious new African COVID-19 variant named Omicron.

A notification of 15-point guidelines was issued to provide an overall instruction to the people and relevant organizations to tackle the disease.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. Strengthening of medical test and screening of passengers arriving from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and other new variant infected countries declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) should be ensured.

2. All types of public gatherings (social/political/religious/others) have to be discouraged.

3. People must follow all essential health rules including wearing facemasks while going outside the house.

4. Limiting dining facility at restaurants should be ensured.

5. Limiting people`s gathering at different places including tourist spot, recreation centre, resort, community centre, cinema hall/ theatre hall and social programmes should be ensured.

6. Health rules must be maintained at all places of worship including mosques.

7. Health rules must be maintained at public transports.

8. Passengers arriving from the infected countries have to be kept for 14-day quarantine.

9. All educational institutions (madrasah, pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher secondary and universities) and coaching centres must maintain health rules.

10. Healthcare professionals and health service recipients must follow heath guidelines strictly.

11. The vaccination programme must be conducted maintaining health rules.

12. People with suspected coronavirus cases, positive patients and other people who have come in close contact with Covid-19 patients have to be kept in quarantine.

13. The suspected Covid-19 people have to be kept at quarantine as well as they have to be brought under testing facility.

14. Wearing face masks must be made mandatory at offices besides maintaining other health rules.

15. Publicity campaign has to be launched to create awareness among people about health guidelines to prevent and control the spread of the deadly virus.