Covid-19: Over 50,000 travellers screened at Mumbai airport

The health department of Maharashtra on Monday said over 50,000 travellers have undergone screening at the international airport here for novel coronavirus since January 18. The screening for the deadly infection started at the busy airport more than a fortnight after the coronavirus (named by the WHO as Covid-19) outbreak was reported from the Hubei province in central China in December-end.

According to the department, in additional to certain countries, it has also started screening air passengers arriving here from Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia as per the guidelines of the Union government. Earlier, the department, since January 18, was doing the screening of travellers coming from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.

A total of 50,091 travellers have been screened at the Mumbai International Airport till now, it said in a release here. It further informed that 85 symptomatic travellers (showing symptoms of the disease) were kept at specially set up isolation facilities over the suspicion of Covid-19 infection.

Of these, only two are currently under observation - one each at isolation facilities in Mumbai and Pune, the department said. "Eight-four samples sent by the state have been found negative (for the virus) as per the reports of the National Institute of Virology, Pune," the release said. The department said field surveillance is also actively going on all across the state in search of people coming from the coronavirus-affected countries and territories.

Till date, out of 294 travellers, 216 have completed their compulsory follow-up of 14 days (the incubation period of the virus) as per the central government's guidelines, it said.

No confirmed case of the deadly disease has been reported in Maharashtra so far. China reported the outbreak of novel coronavirus on December 31, 2019. On Monday, Chinese officials said the death toll has climbed to 2,592, while the total number of confirmed cases increased to over 77,000.

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