From stepping up airport screenings to holding tabs on hundreds of people who returned from overseas, India is monitoring the brand new coronavirus outbreak on the highest stage to stop an epidemic, well being minister Harsh Vardhan mentioned Friday.
The fast-spreading virus was first detected within the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan and belongs to a household of coronaviruses that trigger sickness starting from the widespread chilly to extra extreme illnesses such because the 2003 SARS, or extreme acute respiratory syndrome, outbreak. The brand new pressure of virus, referred to as COVID-19, has killed greater than 1,300 individuals, principally in China, and contaminated over 64,000 individuals worldwide.
India reported three confirmed circumstances within the state of Kerala, out of greater than 1,700 individuals examined across the nation as of Thursday, in keeping with the Indian Council of Medical Analysis. That included 654 individuals evacuated from Wuhan, all of whom had examined adverse.
“We began taking motion on this in the course of January, at the least two weeks earlier than the World Well being Group declared it as an emergency of worldwide concern,” Vardhan instructed CNBC’s “Street Signs.”
Elevated screening measures
These measures embody thermal screening for passengers coming from mainland China, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea at airports and seaports, taking down their detailed historical past after which sharing that data…