South Korea will require all entrants from overseas to take a quarantine time of two weeks beginning April 1 to help prevent the COVID-19 cases from being imported, the prime minister said on March 29.

South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said in a meeting to discuss measures against the COVID-19 that all entrants from overseas, regardless of nationality and region, will be placed under a mandatory quarantine for two weeks starting from Wednesday midnight.

The South Korean government already tightened immigration procedures on people arriving from Europe and the United States, but additional measures were required to be taken given the rapid spread of the COVID-19 across the world, Chung said.

The prime minister said the compulsory two-week quarantine will be enforced to block the entry for unimportant purposes, such as travel, noting that it will be also applied to foreigners coming for a short stay.

Visitors without local addresses here will be forced to stay in quarantine at government-designated facilities at their own expense, he added.

The tightened quarantine measures came as the number of imported COVID-19 cases was on the rise here in recent days.

In the latest tally, South Korea's confirmed cases grew 105 for the past 24 hours, raising the total number to 9,583. Of the new cases, 21 were detected at the airport.

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