NEW DELHI: Continuing to tighten travel restrictions as part of its efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 cases, the government on Tuesday banned flights from Afghanistan, Philippines and Malaysia with immediate effect.“No flight shall take off from these countries to India after 3pm IST on Tuesday,” an fresh advisory said. The government feels restrictions on entry announced since February 26, along with rigorous contact tracing, have helped limit virus transmission.To ascertain whether there is a risk of community transmission, the government is waiting for ICMR to test over 1,000 randomly collected samples of people suffering from severe acute respiratory infection such as pneumonia without having a travel history or contact. The results are expected on Wednesday. The government maintained there is only limited localised transmission and there is no need to panic.Meanwhile, the government also issued guidelines for tests to be conducted by private laboratories. A laboratory test should be only offered such tests when prescribed by a qualified physician as per ICMR guidance. “Since the guidance evolves periodically, the latest revised version should be followed,” said joint secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal.ICMR will share SOPs for laboratory testing and provide positive controls for establishing the test as soon as the private laboratory concerned has procured the primers, probes and reagents. Adoption of commercial kits for testing should be based on validations conducted by ICMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, Agarwal said.“In the wake of the prevailing Covid-19 situation and in order to strengthen the containment measures, it is of utmost importance that each and every case (suspects/confirmed) of Covid-19 is isolated and provided appropriate treatment and their contacts are traced at the earliest to break the chain of transmission. It is important that support and cooperation of private sector is enlisted in this regard,” the government said.Experts say most cases of Covid-19 are mild and selflimiting. According to the World Health Organisation , only 20% patients progress to severe and critical illness and require supportive care interventions, such as oxygen and ventilation.Officials said the readiness was based on risk assessment taking into account age, travel history, contact tracing and co-morbidities of samples which have been collected so far. With 137 positive cases so far, over 5,700 people who have come in contact are under surveillance. Besides, 69,436 people are under community surveillance.Guidelines on dead body management, precautions, infection control and environmental cleaning and disinfection were also released. With coronavirus cases rising and concerns over travellers concealing their itineraries, the government had on Monday banned the entry of passengers from European Union countries, Turkey and the UK till March 31.