The UK Government is set to follow other countries by requiring travellers from China to be tested for Covid-19 from early next year.

Anyone flying from China from January 5 will be required to show a negative Covid-19 test before departing, bringing the UK into line with the approach taken by the US and other countries.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay described the move as “balanced and precautionary”, which comes as Beijing announced plans to start reissuing passports and visas for overseas trips.

Concerns have grown in recent days about surging case numbers in the Asian country after it relaxed its tough Covid-19 restrictions.

“As Covid cases in China rise ahead of them reopening their borders next week, it is right for us to take a balanced and precautionary approach by announcing these temporary measures while we assess the data,” Mr Barclay said.

“This allows our world-leading scientists at the UK Health Security Agency to gain rapid insight into potential new variants circulating in China.”

Alongside the US, India, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan have all set out plans to require visitors from China to be tested for the virus.

Some Tory MPs had been calling for a more robust response from the Government, even as some experts had questioned the usefulness of such restrictions.

Under the new rules, the Covid-19 test will need to have been taken no more than two days before departure.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said on Friday morning: “Trying to ban a virus by adjusting what we do with travel has already been shown not to work very well. We have seen that with the bans on travel from various countries during the pandemic.”

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “The important thing is that we have surveillance that when a virus is spreading within our population here in the UK or Europe we are able to pick that up and predict what might happen with the health systems, and particularly the more vulnerable in the population.”

The Department of Health stressed the new measures, which include plans for surveillance testing of a sample of passengers arriving into the UK, would be kept under “regular review”.

Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, said staff would continue to monitor the spread of any new Covid-19 variants.

“The evidence suggests the recent rise in cases in China is due to low natural immunity and lower vaccine uptake including boosters rather than the emergence of new Covid-19 variants – unlike in the UK where vaccines are maintaining high population protection,” she said.

“In order to improve our intelligence, we are enhancing our surveillance, in addition to our current routine testing protocol.”

There are no direct flights from China to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but the Government said it would be working to ensure measures are implemented across the UK.