ANYONE coming to Fiji from red zone countries such as India and South Africa must spend 14 days in another country before travelling here.

This was the word from Health Ministry permanent secretary Dr James Fong.

“We have stopped the international flights, incoming and outgoing,” he said.

“There are some outgoing flights granted on a case by case basis, especially for those who are going for medical treatment.

“The only ones that are returning will have to be those who are returning from medical treatment.”

Dr Fong said Fiji had declared a number of countries as red zones. “We have already done it, India is one of them.

“These countries that are red zones, usually our strategy has been that whoever comes from those countries, like for example South Africa, we have asked them to go to another country, stay there for 14 days, absorb the risk of that country before you apply to come to our country.

“We usually use other countries that have a lot more resources at their disposal to help facilitate some degree of protection for us. Otherwise, we just say no coming here.

“That refusal has happened. The only people that we have never refused are our citizens.

“However, during this period while we are sorting out this current outbreak and sorting out our containment plan because we are reducing the number of flights coming in, so our citizens are affected.”