Sutirtho Patranobis and Rezaul H Laskar
letters@hindustantimes.com
BEIJING/ NEW DELHI : The Indian government on Tuesday requested China to clear a flight that could evacuate about 300 citizens from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak that has so far killed 106 people and prompted the medical isolation of dozens in India, including the national capital, over suspicions of the infection.
The number of confirmed cases in China surged to 4,515 as of Tuesday from 2,835 the previous day. The flu-like virus has spread overseas, but none of the 106 deaths has been beyond China, and all but six were in Wuhan. The fast-spreading infection was first reported in the capital of the central Chinese province of Hubei last month, experts said, probably from illegally traded wildlife.
Hundreds of Indians are currently in Hubei, mostly in Wuhan. A large number of Indian students are based in Wuhan, though many of them recently left the city for the Chinese New Year holidays.
The external affairs ministry made a formal request to China “for facilitating evacuation of Indian nationals from Wuhan” and the civil aviation ministry will make arrangements after approval is received from Chinese authorities, an official statement said in New Delhi.
“On evacuation, these individuals will be kept in quarantine for 14 days. Necessary arrangements in this regard are being made,” the government note said.
The DGCA also approved an Air India flight to Wuhan for evacuation “as per requirement”, people familiar with developments said. About 300 people, mostly students, research scholars and professionals, are expected to be evacuated from the city, they said.
Another person involved in the matter said on Tuesday evening the flight was not expected to leave before Wednesday as a formal approval from Beijing was awaited. Thermal screening of passengers for possible exposure to the deadly novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection will be extended to 20 airports from the existing seven, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Tuesday and confirmed no case has been detected in India so far.
He said the government has made four more laboratories functional other than National Institute of Virology-Pune (NIV-Pune) for testing samples and it will be extended to 10 labs in the coming days. Authorities in Delhi on Monday isolated three people at the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital with flu-like symptoms after they returned from China. Two of these patients arrived in the last week, while the third had returned from China nearly a month ago.