Wuhan evacuees to be quarantined near Delhi

New Delhi: The first of two Air India evacuation fights arrived in Wuhan on Friday evening to pick up about 400 people, many of them students, stranded in the Chinese city that’s the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. The plane was ferried from Mumbai to Delhi, kitted out with specialised medical equipment provided by the health ministry, and departed for the Chinese city on Friday afternoon.
The passengers will be screened at the airport, following which they will be sent to two quarantine facilities set up for the purpose for about two weeks or sent to isolation wards. One quarantine is at the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp in southwest Delhi’s Chhawla area that houses the force’s sector headquarters. The other is at Manesar, near Gurgaon, and will be managed by the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS).

The male passengers, estimated at comabout 280 in the first flight, are proposed to be sent to the Manesar camp and women and children, pegged at about 90, to the one in Chhawla.

“Responding to an emergency requirement to create and manage a facility for quarantine of approximately 300 Indian students arriving from Wuhan, China, the Indian Army has acted swiftly and created a facility near Manesar,” the army said.

“At Manesar, the students can be monitored for a duration of two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members to watch for any signs of infection.”

The plane is expected back in Delhi in the early hours of Saturday.

It’s scheduled to leave for Wuhan again later in the day on the second evacuation mission.

Foreign minister S Jaishankar has thanked the Chinese authorities.

“Called Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi today to thank him for the cooperation extended by the Chinese government for the departure of Indian students and professionals from Wuhan,” he tweeted. “As China deals with the #coronavirus challenge, we agreed to stay in touch.” The passengers will be screened at the airport and classified into three groups. The first will comprise ‘suspect cases’—individuals with any sign of fever, cough and respiratory distress.

They will be sent to the isolation ward at the Army Base Hospital in Delhi Cantonment.

The next will be ‘close contact’ individuals without symptoms but those who have visited a seafood or animal market, a health facility or come in contact with anyone with symptoms in the past 14 days. They will be quarantined. The third category of ‘non-contact’ cases will consist of individuals without symptoms or contact or who don’t fit into either of the other groups. They will be also be quarantined.

“After 14 days, persons with no symptoms will be allowed to go home with their detailed documentation sent to the district/ state surveillance units for further surveillance,” the army said. “Those found infected will be shifted to BHDC (Base Hospital Delhi Cantt) isolation ward for further medical exams and recovery.”

The 600-bed Chhawla camp will have a team of 25 doctors--15 from Safdarjung hospital and 10 from ITBP— apart from other support staff, said ITBP spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey. Special arrangements have been made to host children and women at the facility, an unoccupied residential unit for ITBP personnel, Pandey said.