By Raju Vernekar
Mumbai, Jan 28
A 36-year-old man, who returned from China, was admitted in the isolation ward of the BMC run Kasturba Hospital in North Mumbai for suspected exposure to “Coronavirus”, on Monday taking the number of persons admitted to the hospital to four in Mumbai.
The man, a resident of Tardeo in south Mumbai, has been kept under observation and his blood samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. Three persons were admitted to Kasturba Hospital for possible exposure to the virus strain and their screening was done last week. With this, the total number of persons under observation in the country has gone up to 15…3 in Hyderabad, 7 in Kerala, 4 in Mumbai and one in Bengaluru.
In a related development, the national carrier Air India, has kept a 423 seater jumbo plane ready to evacuate 250 odd Indians stranded in Wuhan province in China. The airline is awaiting necessary approvals from the ministries of External Affairs and Health to operate the special evacuation flight, an AI official said. The Ministry of External Affairs will make a request to the Chinese authorities, while the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Ministry of Health will make arrangements for transport and quarantine facilities respectively, he added.
Government has also asked the Civil Aviation Ministry to issue instruction to airlines for managing and notifying anybody reporting illness on all direct and indirect flight to China besides facilitating in-flight announcements and distribution of health cards to all flights with direct or indirect connectivity to China.
Wuhan along 12 other cities have been completely sealed by the Chinese authorities to stop the virus from spreading. The death toll has climbed to 80 with 2,744 confirmed cases. Over 250 to 300 Indian students are reportedly stuck in Wuhan triggering concerns over their well-being.
