New Delhi: The government today set up a control room and launched helpline numbers to maintain an intensive surveillance to prevent the spread of dreaded Ebola virus in the country and provide information about it to the common people.
“The helpline numbers 23063205, 23061469 and 23061302 were made operational this morning at the Health Ministry which dealt with 30 calls during the day,” a Health Ministry statement said.
Expressing satisfaction with the reaction of the general public to the awareness campaign initiative, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said most of the callers to the helpline reflected a mature understanding of the collective responsibility in times like this.
“They wanted to know details about the symptoms and preventive measures,” he said.
The Minister had yesterday said that India does not have any confirmed or even suspected Ebola virus affected person.
World Health Organisation (WHO) had informed that one Indian passenger had traveled on the same flight in which patient (foreign national) with Ebola virus was traveling from Monrovia to Lagos.
“This Indian passenger is back in India. He has been tracked and his health is being regularly monitored. We are happy to share that the said person is healthy, fit and fine,” he said.
Government has already initiated some measures to prevent the disease from entering into the country, which include tracking of passengers arriving from the affected countries at the airports based on the information provided by Ministry of External Affairs and designation of RML Hospital here for management of such cases in Delhi.
Government has advised Indians against non-essential travel to the four West African countries such as Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, which form the epicenter of the disease.
