India fights coronavirus: ITBP to set up 4 new quarantine sites

NEW DELHI: The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is setting up four more quarantine camps for Covid-19 suspects as the country gears up to deal with the rising number of coronavirus cases.
The new camps — which will be able to collectively house about 1,300 people — will come up at ITBP’s training facilities of the paramilitary force in Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.This is in addition to the ITBP camp already functioning in Delhi’s Chhawala that has 112 people evacuated from China’s Wuhan in February.
While the ITBP facility in Chandigarh will have space for 580 people, Shivgangai (Tamil Nadu) will house 300, and Kimin (Arunachal Pradesh) and Karera (MP) can shelter 210 and 180 people, respectively. Each facility is being fumigated and a dozen buses are on stand-by to ferry people.
One of the reasons that ITBP has been rushed by the Centre is the functioning of the medicos with heavy experience of dealing with emergency crisis involving jawans stationed at height of 15,000-17,000 feet.
The ITBP will be dispatching a team of doctors from its general duty medical officers (GDMO) cadre and specalist cadre spread across the country to these quarantine centres.
"Our GDMO cadre are those doctors who have spent time with jawans during expeditition, insurgencies, border management in frightening cold to extreme harsh weather conditions," said a senior ITBP medical officer
Besides ITBP, Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI), which on Thursday sealed all its nine integrated check posts (ICP)s said it has armed its officials with personal protective equipment (PPE) such as suit, touchless thermal thermometer and pulse-oxymeter at key places.
"At 3 PM, a passenger konan Singh arrived at ICP Attari fro Malaysia via Pakistan. He has been suspected to be Coronavirus positive case. We have evacuated him to Amritsar district hospital. But since today, we have sealed both cargo and traffic movement at all ICPS," said a senior LPAI official.
LPAI has two ICPs that share border with Pakistan and Nepal each while four ICPS share their border with Bangladesh.
The ministry of defence has set up seven more quarantine facilities for COVID-19 patients, especially for Indian citizens being brought back from coronavirus-hit countries, an official on Thursday.
The facilities are likely being set up at Jaisalmer, Suratgadh, Jhansi, Jodhpur, Deolali, Kolkata and Chennai.