People travelling from China to Spain will be required to test negative for Covid-19 or prove they have been fully vaccinated against the disease, Health Minister Carolina Darias said on Friday morning.
The new measure comes after the European Union's Health Security Committee met yesterday to discuss the bloc's common strategy to mitigate the spread of the virus with the influx of visitors from China after the Asian country lifted most of its travel restrictions.
Darias added that Spain would coordinate at a high level with other member countries to adopt a common policy, while pushing for a revision of the current conditions that need to be met by travellers seeking to obtain the EU's so-called Digital Covid Certificate.
Earlier, South Korea took steps to limit travellers from mainland China, imposing visa restrictions, testing requirements and limiting flights as Beijing grapples with a surge in Covid-19 infections.
Other countries including Italy, Japan, India, the United States and Israel have also announced their own measures, which they say are a bid to avoid importing new coronavirus variants from China.
"Until the February next year, those entering (South Korea) from China will be required to undergo a Covid test before and after their arrivals," Seoul's Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said.
Travellers from China must provide a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours before boarding a plane to South Korea, or a negative antigen test within 24 hours before departure.
They will also be required to undergo a PCR test within the first day of their arrival, Mr Han said.
Seoul is "inevitably strengthening some anti-epidemic measures to prevent the spread of the virus in our country due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in China," he added.
China's hospital have been overwhelmed by an explosion in cases after Beijing began unwinding hardline controls that had torpedoed the economy and sparked nationwide protests.
A growing number of countries have imposed restrictions on visitors from China after Beijing's decision to end mandatory quarantine on arrival prompted many to book travel plans.
Chinese citizens have been largely confined to their country since Beijing pulled up the drawbridge in March 2020.
South Korea will also restrict the issuing of short-term visas to Chinese nationals, excluding public officials, diplomats and those with crucial humanitarian and business purposes, until the end of January next year.
Seoul is scaling back the number of flights from China and all flights from the country will now have to land only at South Korea's main Incheon International Airport, Han added.
South Korea's southernmost Jeju Island, which has its own international airport and separate visa entry regime, was a popular tourist destination for Chinese arrivals before the pandemic.
A senior US health official this week said that Beijing has provided only limited information to global databases about the Covid variants circulating in China, and its testing and reporting on new cases had diminished.
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