Govt readies to fight coronavirus with evacuation requests, border checks

Five states bordering Nepal start screening people for possible exposure, MEA to request China to help send back Indians from Wuhan

As the Coronavirus threat intensifies, the government has begun continuously monitoring the situation across sectors so that timely action can be taken to prevent a crisis in India. So far, no one in the country has tested positive for the latest strain of the pathogen.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed government machineries to take up the issue on a war footing, following which the first big meeting on the matter took place last Saturday.

At that meeting, chaired by P K Mishra, principal secretary to the PM, top bureaucrats from across ministries such as health, civil aviation, home affairs and external affairs briefed Mishra on the preparedness and response measures taken so far.

Two days later, cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba took a follow-up review meeting, while stepping up efforts to contain the virus. One of the decisions taken during the course of discussions was that the Ministry of External Affairs would make a request to the Chinese authorities for the possible evacuation of Indians in China's Wuhan province, the centre of the virus outbreak in China.

Significantly, in the meeting chaired by the Cabinet Secretary on Monday, top representatives of National Disaster Management Authority and DG (Armed Forces Medical Services) too were present, apart from officials from the health, civil aviation, external affairs and defence ministries, among others.

In a quickly changing scenario, the latest numbers given by the government on Monday suggest 137 flights had been screened with the total cumulative passengers at 29,707. Samples of 12 passengers were referred to NIV Pune, but no positive case has been reported so far.

According to a government statement, the civil aviation ministry is distributing health cards to all flights with direct or indirect connectivity in China, while instructing airlines to manage and notify anybody reporting illness on those routes.

The Home Ministry has initiated the monitoring of check posts on the Nepal border and screening of visitors. States and immigration officers have been kept on alert too for this exercise. The shipping ministry has initiated screening at international ports with traffic from China.

Health ministry is also on an overdrive to screen people in five states bordering Nepal. Community-level monitoring of passengers by health staff has also been advised.

Health secretary Preeti Sudan chaired a video conference (VC) with Chief Secretaries and DG (Police) of the five states bordering Nepal (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Sikkim) and principal health secretaries of other states to review their preparedness for prevention and management of coronavirus.

In case of an evacuation, ministries of aviation and health will make arrangements for transport and quarantine. Air India flights have been kept on stand-by.    

A 24x7 call centre has been made operational to monitor the list of contacts furnished by Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and  provide details of district and state surveillance officers to those who seek them. Also in case of any clinical query it would direct the concerned to the relevant Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) officer. 

Over 100 people have been kept under observation in Kerala and Maharashtra who may have had a possible exporsure to the new coronavirus. 

Tamil Nadu Health and Family Welfare Minister C.Vijaya Baskar said that State government is well prepared to the threat of Corona Virus and is taking all prevention activities all over the State. The health department officials across the State has been alerted.

"We are well prepared. So far not even a single case identified in Tamil Nadu," he told a television news agency here. A three member team from the Government of India is visiting Chennai to check the State's preparedness. He appealed to the public not to panic. Earlier there were threat of Nipah and Ebola viruses and the government has taken preventive action.

Kerala government on Monday said that around 288 people are under observation, of which seven has some symptoms of Coronavirus infection. However, test results were negative for presence of virus for five of them, while the result for the others are expected to come out today, said State Health Minister K K Shailaja. Those who have shown the symptoms are in hospitals, while the others are under observation at their house. The State government has opened control room under Secretary to the Health Department in Thiruvananthapuram. She said that there is nothing to worry, but proper precautions is being taken. 

However, several Keralites are trapped in China and the State Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday requesting him to direct the Indian Embassy in China to act proactively and provide necessary assistance and reassurance to Indians, including Keralites, in Wuhan and Yichang.

According to Reuters the coronavirus outbreak that began in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has killed 106 people in China and infected more than 4,520 globally, most of them in China. Reuters added that  Thailand and Hong Kong have each reported eight cases of infection; the United States, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and Macau have five each; Japan, South Korea and Malaysia each have reported four; France three; Vietnam and Canada two each, and one each in Germany, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Cambodia 

So far, no fatalities have been reported outside China. 

Coronaviruses typically cause respiratory tract infections in mammals. There are about seven known coronaviruses - apart from the Wuhan variant, other key cornonavirus outbreaks include SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) that was behind an outbreak between 2002 to 2003, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) that led to an outbreak in 2012. 

In all these previous occasions, these outbreaks have caused thousands of deaths across the globe.