Ljubljana - The Health Ministry has issued guidelines on testing for persons who receive mandatory quarantine orders following their return to Slovenia from areas and countries with the new coronavirus variant Omicron - currently South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

In a decree in force since Saturday, the government has made quarantine compulsory on entry into Slovenia for persons residing in countries or areas where Omicron has been detected, or persons who were in those countries or areas in the last 14 days.

The ministry urged all testing providers on Tuesday to test those persons with PCR tests, and their samples should be specifically labelled as samples by arrivals coming from areas with the new coronavirus strain that the World Health Organisation has declared to be of concern.

A 10-day quarantine will be imposed on arrival for those persons. The quarantine cannot be ended early, and on the 11th day, the quarantined persons need to take a PCR test. If the test is positive, the same protocol applies as to all other persons who have tested positive.

The latest guidelines from the ministry urge all persons in quarantine due to the risk of importing the new variant to take a PCR test as soon as quarantine is imposed, and then again on the fifth and tenth day.

Persons who had been in the high-risk areas for 14 days before the new regulation came into force on Saturday must notify emergency services using the number 113, after which they will be quarantined for 10 days under the same conditions as recent or new arrivals from those areas.

Foreigners without a residence permit in Slovenia who come from areas with the Omicron variant are not allowed to enter the country.