NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday said that 12,828 passengers from 60 flights have been screened till Thursday for Novel Coronovirus (nCoV) symptoms, but no case of the infection has been detected in India so far.
The update from the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry comes amidst reports that travel to and from Wuhan and four other cities in China have been restricted as about 570 confirmed cases of nCoV have been diagnosed leaving patients dead.
Wuhan was the epicentre of the viral infection that is being seen in humans for the first time.
Back home, as of now, thermal screening is being done at the international airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin.
A statement by the ministry said that rapid response teams of the states had been trained in the management of MERS-CoV outbreak (a similarly placed virus, reported from the Middle East) in the year 2014.
“More recently these rapid response teams of all states and regional directors of this ministry have also been trained in November-December, 2019 on the management of high-risk pathogens in the context of Ebola virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” it added.
The release by the government also said that the situation is being closely monitored by the top officials of the ministry in close coordination with other concerned ministries and departments in the states.