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Updated February 1st, 2020 at 18:49 IST

Coronavirus: 324 Indians evacuated from Wuhan, admitted to ITBP, Army facilities

As many as 324 Indians, evacuated from China's Wuhan city, on Saturday reached here on board Air India's jumbo B747 aircraft and were admitted at the two quarantine facilities set up by the Army and the ITBP, though none of them have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials said

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As many as 324 Indians, evacuated from China's Wuhan city, on Saturday reached here on board Air India's jumbo B747 aircraft and were admitted at the two quarantine facilities set up by the Army and the ITBP, though none of them have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials said.

The plane, carrying 211 students, 110 working professionals and three minors, reached Delhi around 7.30 am, they said, adding that none of them have tested positive for the coronavirus as yet. Another flight of the airline, which departed for the Chinese city from here around 1.37 pm to bring back Indian nationals, reached Wuhan around 5.40 pm on Saturday, the officials said.

Five doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, who were on board the first flight, are also in the second flight, an Air India spokesperson said. Out of the total 324 who landed here this morning, 88 women, 10 men and six children were brought to the special quarantine facility of the ITBP in southwest Delhi's Chhawla area, ITBP spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey said.

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The Army has also set up a quarantine facility in Manesar near Delhi to keep around 300 Indians being evacuated from China's Hubei province in view of the coronavirus infection outbreak. Separately, border-guarding force ITBP has set up a 600-bedded facility in southwest Delhi's Chhawla area to quarantine and provide basic medical care to those suspected to have been affected by the virus.

The officials said the Indians evacuated from China will be monitored for any signs of the infection for a duration of two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. The first flight had departed from Delhi airport at 1.17 pm on Friday to evacuate Indian nationals from China, where more than 250 people, none of them Indian, have died due to the deadly coronavirus infection.

Out of the 324 persons that have been evacuated through first Air India flight, 56, 53 and 42 are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively. Two more people suspected of being affected by coronavirus have been admitted to the isolation ward of the RML Hospital here, taking the total number of patients housed at the facility to eight, hospital authorities said.

On Friday evening, two men, aged 23 and 46 years, complained of respiratory problems and fever at the hospital which has been designated by the government to deal with such cases, they said.

Wuhan, Hubei's capital, is the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The virus has killed 259 people in China with total confirmed cases surging to 11,791 amid stepped up efforts by a number of countries to evacuate their nationals from Hubei province, officials said on Saturday. Air India has done such evacuations earlier also from countries such as Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait and Nepal. 

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Published February 1st, 2020 at 18:49 IST

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