THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After the situation turned grim across the world, especially in West Asian countries, in the wake of Coronavirus expanding its footprint, Kerala government has enforced universal screening in all the four airports in the state. It has also enhanced the number of medical teams deployed in airports and has deployed more thermal image scanners, making it mandatory for all passengers to undergo scanning at arrival terminals.
Further, all the airlines have been asked to make in-flight announcements requesting passengers with a history of fever and cough to self-declare the details of their health at the port of arrival in order to facilitate early isolation. This is for the first time Kerala airports have pressed thermal image scanners into service.
Speaking to TNIE, Dr Amar Fettle, state Nodal Officer for Public Health Emergencies, said, “We have increased the number of medical teams and thermal image scanners at Trivandrum Airport from two to four. In the case of Cochin International Airport, as many as 12 thermal image scanners are available in place of the initial five. Similarly, the number of medical teams and thermal image scanners would be enhanced in Calicut and Kannur international airports,” he said.
According to CIAL officials, as many as 22 doctors and 40 paramedical staff have been deployed at the immigration counters at the airport to screen 6,000 passengers on an average daily. Earlier, only the passengers who flew in from notified countries had to undergo screening. But now with the union government issuing a directive to enforce universal screening, all the passengers have to undergo it.
C V Ravindran, director of Trivandrum International Airport, said apart from international passengers, even domestic passengers coming from other airports in the country have been directed to undergo thermal screening in the airport if they have a travel history of visiting a foreign country. Earlier, in the beginning of the outbreak in China, only seven Indian airports had set up thermal scanners.
Thermal scanners
The heat sensors attached to the thermal camera in the scanner record heat generated by the body of a person or an object to create a 2D image and it records the variation in temperature in different colour levels. These temperature-level variations help the medical teams deployed in the airports to detect abnormal body temperature, which is the first symptom of the virus-affected person. Though in the time of the outbreak of SARS virus, swine flu outbreak in 2009 and Ebola outbreak in 2014, many countries, including India, used the cameras. But this is for the first time Kerala airports have introduced round-the-clock thermal imaging.