New Delhi, India

New Zealand Member of Parliament Golriz Ghahraman has raised concerns on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's temporary suspension of entry for all travellers from India, including its own citizens.

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Ghahraman, a member of the Green Party took to social networking platform Twitter and said, ''On the India entry bans: Weird we didn't go with an all out ban as an option for US or UK entries, given their harrowing rates on COVID. Our ethnic communities of South Asian origin need to know race isn't a factor in our COVID risk management.''

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Earlier, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had said in a news conference in Auckland "We are temporarily suspending entry into New Zealand for travellers from India."

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Also read| New Zealand suspends entry for travellers from India amid COVID-19 spike

India has recorded 12.8 million COVID-19 cases, the most after the United States and Brazil. It is now battling a deadly second wave of infections, and this week the number of daily new cases passed the peak of the first wave seen last September.

Watch: New Zealand suspends flights from India

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The suspension will start from 1600 local time on April 11 and will be in place until April 28. During this time the government will look at risk management measures to resume travel.

The suspension applies to anyone who has been in India during the past 14 days. It is the first time that New Zealand has extended any bar on entry to its own citizens and residents.

"I want to emphasize that while arrivals of COVID from India has prompted this measure, we are looking at how we manage high risk points of departure generally. This is not a country specific risk assessment...," Ardern said.

New Zealand has virtually eliminated the virus within its borders, and has not reported any community transmission locally for about 40 days.

But it has been reviewing its border settings as more infected people have been arriving recently, most of them from India.

Pre-departure testing requirements reduced the number of positive cases coming from other countries but that's not been the case with India, Ardern said.

"We have looked into whether or not we have issues with accuracy of the pre-departure tests. That has not demonstrated that that's where the problem lies. So this suspension gives us the time to look at the problem more generally," she said.

New Zealand on Thursday also reported one new locally infected case in a worker who was employed at a coronavirus managed isolation facility.