People traveling from China to Spain will be required to test negative for COVID-19 or prove they have been fully vaccinated against the disease, Spain's top health official said.

"At a national level, we will implement airport controls requiring all passengers coming from China to show a negative COVID-19 test or proof of a full vaccination course," Health Minister Carolina Darias told reporters.

The move comes despite the EU's health agency, the European Centre for Disease Control, saying that such measures were unnecessary. Any cases imported from China were unlikely to have a significant impact on infection rates in Europe, the organization said.

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Wang Wenbin, spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has called on governments to follow science-based and proportionate measures regarding travel rules and urged that they avoid targeting specific countries or disrupting normal travel and people-to-people exchange.

Spain's measures come after the European Union's Health Security Committee met on Thursday to discuss the bloc's common strategy to mitigate the spread of the virus with an increase in visitors from China after it lifted most of its travel restrictions.

Darias added that Spain would coordinate at a high level with other member countries to adopt a common policy, while pushing for a revision of the current conditions that need to be met by travelers seeking to obtain the EU's so-called Digital COVID-19  Certificate.

Earlier, countries such as Italy, South Korea, the United States, India and Japan imposed mandatory testing for visitors from China.

Cover photo: A traveller pushes a luggage cart at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport , in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China December 30, 2022. Reuters/Tingshu Wang