NEW DELHI: India on Sunday airlifted a second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from China's coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654, Indian officials said.
Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,380 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK.
In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back.
Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high temperatures, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said.
Earlier, six Indians were stopped from boarding the first special Air India flight from the Coronavirus-hit city due to high fever.
The first flight left early Saturday with 324 stranded Indians mostly students from Wuhan.
Further, two days after the first case of Coronavirus infection in India was confirmed in Kerala, the state has reported its second positive case.
As per a statement from the Union Health Ministry, the second confirmed case has a travel history from China.
While the details of the patient are yet to be revealed, the ministry said that the patient is in isolation in the hospital and is stable, however, it is not clear whether the second infected person is related to the previous patient in any way.
Earlier, the first confirmed case of nCoV was reported from Thrissur and per the daily bulletin of the department, the health status of the patient remains satisfactory.
The Centre had on Saturday said that it had decided to screen all passengers from Thailand and Singapore at airports in addition to travelers coming from China and Hongkong in the wake of rising number of nCov cases.
Till February, over 52,000 passengers from 326 flights had been screened at airports in India.
So far, nearly 105 samples have been tested for the virus in India and two have tested positive, officials said.
(With ENS inputs)