Coronavirus: Over 1.97 lakh travellers and 1,818 flights screened so far

The minister stated that as of February 9, there were 37,198 confirmed cases and 811 deaths reported in China. Moreover, 354 confirmed cases have been reported from 27 countries (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) outside China.

In India, three positive cases have been reported from Kerala. These cases have a travel history from Wuhan in China, and they have been isolated and are reported to be clinically stable, he said.

The government of India has taken several measures to control the risk of coronavirus infection. The first advisory was issued on January 17, and as the situation is evolving, travel advisories are also being revised accordingly.

• Existing visas (including eVisa already issued) are no longer valid for any foreign national travelling from China.
• People having compelling reasons to visit India are asked to contact the Indian embassy in Beijing or consulate in Shanghai or Guangzhou.
• People have already been advised to refrain from travelling to China through an earlier advisory. People travelling to China henceforth will be quarantined on return.

Screening of passengers started on January 18. Initially, airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi were covered and subsequently expanded to 21 airports, the minister informed.

Universal thermal screening has been made mandatory for all flights from Singapore and Thailand besides Hong Kong and China, and these flights will park at earmarked aero-bridges to facilitate screening. Signage has been displayed at prominent places in airports and ports, in-flight announcements are being made and all passengers are filling up self-declaration forms, he added.

A total of 1,818 flights have been screened covering 1,97,192 passengers as of February 10, Vardhan informed.

The ministry has issued guidelines to support states on surveillance and contact tracing, surveillance at points of entry, laboratory samples collection, packaging and transport, clinical management protocol and infection prevention and control in healthcare facilities. To ensure the availability of critical items like Personal Protective Equipments (PPE) and N95 masks, the exports of the same were also prohibited by the director-general of Foreign Trade. States, as well as the union government, are maintaining a buffer stock of PPE and N95 masks.

Biology and history

Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that cause illness in humans and animals. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can evolve and infect people and then spread among people such as has been seen with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2014.

China reported an outbreak of the novel coronavirus (nCoV) on December 31, 2019. The outbreak was initially noticed in a seafood market in Wuhan city in Hubei Province of China in early December 2019; and in a short span, spread to all the provinces of China. 

Many of the epidemiological parameters such as incubation period, mode of transmission, subclinical infection, the period of virus shedding etc., are still being researched. Once a person is exposed to the infection, it may take about two weeks to develop the illness.

The main symptoms of the disease are fever, cough, and difficulty in breathing. There will be radiological evidence indicative of pneumonia. In 10% to 20% of cases, the disease may become severe enough to require ventilatory support. The case fatality is around 2%. Human to human transmission has been noticed in the cases of novel coronavirus and it spreads through droplets/aerosols in persons having close contact.

Public health implications of the reports that the virus has been found in faecal samples of infected patients are being worked out.  All suspected or probable cases of nCoV must be treated in isolation with barrier nursing and universal precautions to prevent the further spread of disease. National Institute of Virology in Pune is the nodal laboratory.

As part of ICMR’s preparedness for emerging/re-emerging infectious disease, NIV has established capacity for molecular diagnosis of nCoV. Next-generation sequencing is also established. Testing of clinical samples has also been initiated in 11 more laboratories. As of now, 1510 samples have been tested; 1507 found negative, three samples have tested positive and 27 samples are under process.