With 33 in isolation, a look at how Delhi is battling coronavirus crisis
The task force set up by the government has traced 92 contacts of this man so far, of which 14 people live in Delhi
As coronavirus scare looms across the world with at least 33 people infected with the novel coronavirus or Covid-19 in India, airports in the country are all set for a mammoth screening exercise.
Delhi government's infectious disease control cell has been working overtime to look for the people he came in contact with before being sent to the isolation facility at Safdarjung hospital, since the first Delhi person tested positive for coronavirus, reported Hindustan Times.
In the past two days there has been a sharp rise of infections in India, from six on Tuesday to 29 on Wednesday.
Health minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said in the Parliament that 28,529 persons across the country have been brought under surveillance.
The government announced on Wednesday that all international passengers entering India will be screened at airports. The decision implies that passengers entering the country via seaports will also be screened.
Screening of passengers is being done across across 21 airports, and 15,000 passengers at 12 major and 65 minor seaports.
Update of coronavirus outbreak in India:
The task force set up by the government has traced 92 contacts of this man so far, of which 14 people live in Delhi.
For the other 74, the government has contacted the respective states to follow up. Six others from the family, who were living in Agra, also tested positive and are also in the isolation facility at Safdarjung hospital.
Apart from that, the state and the district level task force have also been involved in tracing the contacts of the group of Italian tourists who travelled to Rajasthan.
"Since the people tested positive, we have sanitised all the hotels that they were in and also informed the hotels of infection control measures. We have also sensitised our own staff members," said a government official on condition of anonymity.
Till the morning of March 4, over 1.2 lakh passengers from 12 countries had been screened at the Delhi airport.
Since the screenings began, 152 persons were found to be symptomatic and were admitted to either of two nodal hospitals in Delhi - Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Safdarjung hospital. So far, 118 of them have tested negative and one positive.
In Delhi, 33 people were under hospital isolation till March 4, pending test results. Of them, 10 had been admitted to the hospitals on Wednesday.
Apart from the two designated hospitals, which together have the isolation capacity for 130 persons, the state government has also asked 25 other hospitals to strengthen their isolation facility and arrange for necessary logistics.
