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Update 15 May 2023: ANVISA’s Resolution RDC 789/2023 of 11 May 2023 revoked Resolution RDC 754/2022. Therefore, it is no longer required to provide proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 tests to embark or disembark at Brazilian ports.
Declared the end of the Public Health Emergency of National Concern due to COVID-19, the federal port health authority approved new measures for cruise ships
On 29 September 2022, the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) issued Resolution RDC 754/2022, introducing new health procedures and standards on board cruise ships operating off the Brazilian coast in the 2022/2023 cruise season.
The previous regulation on the subject, Resolution RDC 574/2021, was repealed.
RDC 754/2022 updates a series of measures for health controls of passengers, crews and non-crew professionals who access cruise ships in Brazil, including those arriving from abroad.
Travellers on board cargo vessels, port and maritime support vessels and platforms are subject to specific rules.
Main features
Vaccination or test
Travellers aged three years and older may choose to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination or a negative or non-reactive result of an antigen or molecular test performed the day before boarding. Self-tests, COVID-19 recovery certificates and QR-code-only vaccination certificates are unacceptable.
Face masks
Masks are optional but advisable. Their use is compulsory for suspected or confirmed cases and close contacts. All travellers on board must wear a face mask in case of quarantine.
Local visitors and service providers must wear a PFF2 or N95 mask, be asymptomatic, and stay on board for no more than six hours.
Other measures, such as making hand sanitisers available, ensuring efficient HVAC and waste management systems, monitoring shipboard cases and isolating affected people and close contacts, and keeping best practices in hygiene, cleaning, and disinfection, remain in place.
Documentary requirements
Among the new requirements, cruise operators (or local agents) must provide health authorities with specific forms to communicate the operations of the vessels, ports of calls, estimated arrival and departure times, and a plan, approved by ANVISA, to prevent and respond to COVID-19 cases. The forms are sent electronically through an ANVISA website and must be submitted at least seven days prior to the intended call.
When applying for free pratique or rendering arrival notice, the following information must be provided to ANVISA’s local station:
- Copy of the medical logbook for the last 30 days
- Identification of travellers, including function, cabin, age, and COVID-19 vaccinal status
- Travel history in the past 14 days
- Signs and symptoms of travellers, with the date of outset along with diagnostic hypothesis, the treatment afforded, tests performed, respective results, and any health control measures applied on board
Isolation and quarantine
Measures of isolation and quarantine of affected persons and ships are still in place. The duration of these measures is dictated by the Ministry of Health’s Ordinance GM/MS 3,667 of 29 September 2022. Said regulation establishes objective criteria for evaluating the epidemiological scenario of COVID-19 and conditions for compliance with the isolation or quarantine of travellers and cruise ships.
Isolation time for confirmed cases is 10 (ten) days for light to moderate symptoms and 20 (twenty) days for severe symptoms.
Symptomatic suspected cases must remain isolated until the remission of symptoms. They must be submitted to immediate testing for framing as confirmed (positive result) or compliant with isolation until remission and a new negative test.
Asymptomatic close contacts must remain in isolation for 5 (five) days and be submitted to testing immediately upon a positive result of a close confirmed case, and new testing after 5 (five) days.
At least 2% of available cabins must be reserved to accommodate and manage suspected and confirmed cases and close contacts. The ship must also have a qualified and trained health team to respond to health events. It must also carry sufficient health and laboratory supplies for the entire voyage and the number of travellers on board to enable immediate response.
Cruise industry during the pandemic
2020/2021 season
The 2020/2021 cruise season was called off in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic reached Brazilian shores.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, various regulations in the context of combating the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus were published by the Brazilian health authorities and cruise operations remained suspended.
2021/2022 season
Eventually, in October 2021, cruise ships were allowed to resume operations in Brazil starting in November 2021. However, given the emergence of the Omicron variant of concern a few weeks later – and the spike in the number of cases aboard cruise ships that followed – the cruise sector chose to voluntarily and temporarily suspend cruise operations as of January 2022.
The national scenario of falling COVID-19 confirmed cases and fatalities has made it possible for the cruise industry and the health authorities to come together and update health measures and protocols for ships and port terminals. Cruise operations for the 2021/2022 season resumed in March 2022.
2022/2023 season
Brazil’s 2022/2023 cruise season will open in November 2022 and is expected to last nearly six months. Cruise operators MSC and Costa anticipate a record-breaking season with nine ships sailing up and down the Atlantic coast, including calls at ports in Uruguay (Montevideo and Punta del Este) and Argentina (Buenos Aires).
The Brazilian branch of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA Brasil) expects the cruise fleet deployed for the 2022/2023 season to offer 780,000 beds, 47% higher than the occupancy in pre-pandemic times.
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Tourism, this cruise season will inject BRL 4 billion (about USD 770 million) into the national economy and create more than 44 thousand direct and indirect jobs.
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