Centre reviews preparedness to tackle the Novel Coronavirus

Cabinet
Secretary held a high level review meeting on the preparedness for Novel
Coronavirus in New Delhi yesterday.

Secretaries
of Health and Family Welfare, External Affairs, Home Affairs, Civil Aviation,
Department of Health Research, and representatives from ITBP, AFMS and NDMA
were present in the meeting. The Cabinet Secretary has held six review meetings
so far.

A new travel
advisory has been issued urging everyone to refrain from travel to China. In
case of travel, people could be quarantined on return from China. Anyone with
travel history in China since 15th January and from now on could be
quarantined.

58,658
passengers from 445 flights have been screened so far. A total of 142
symptomatic travellers picked up by the Integrated Disease Surveillance
Programme (IDSP) have been referred to the isolation facilities. 130 samples
have been tested of which 128 have been found to be negative.

The two
positive cases found in Kerala are being monitored and are clinically stable.
The second batch of 330 passengers, including 7 Maldivan citizens, from Wuhan
arrived in India yesterday. Of these, 300 people are housed at ITBP Chawla Camp
and 30 are in Manesar. They are being effectively monitored.