“The special Cabinet meeting has agreed in principle to allow medical tourists from green category countries – Brunei, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand – to enter the country via commercial aircraft to receive treatment in Malaysia,” Senior Minister for Security Ismail Sabri Yaakob said today.

He told a press conference the medical tourists would have to undergo Covid-19 swabs before they departed and arrived at the airport, and they would be brought to the hospital as soon as they arrived in Malaysia.

However, he said, the approval for such travel was dependent on discussions with the respective countries’ ministries of foreign affairs.

The “green bubble” countries are those with a low number of Covid-19 cases.

On June 17, the special Cabinet meeting on Covid-19 decided to reopen the country’s international borders to medical tourists, although it did not specify which countries would be given the green light.

The announcement was welcomed by the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, which said the Covid-19 pandemic had resulted in a 75% drop in medical tourists into Malaysia.

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