Govt goes full throttle to contain COVID-19
New Delhi: The number of Coronavirus cases in India rose to 44 on Monday with six people, including a three-year-old child in Kerala who had returned from Italy, testing positive for the disease, Health Ministry officials said on Monday.
According to the Health Ministry's latest report, the total numbers of positive cases also include 3 positive cases from Kerala who are now discharged so there are 42 active cases of COVID-19 in the country. The new cases of Coronavirus that have been reported on Monday are – one from Ernakulum (Kerala), one from Delhi, one from Uttar Pradesh, one from Jammu, one from Bengaluru (travel history from USA) and one from Hoshiarpur (Punjab) with a travel history to Italy.
Union Health Ministry's special secretary Sanjeeva Kumar has also clarified that the patient from Murshidabad, West Bengal was tested negative for COVID-19 and hence, so far no death has been reported due to Coronavirus in the country.
Union Health minister Harsh Vardhan, who chaired a review and coordination meeting with Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, mayors of the Municipal Corporations of Delhi and senior officials of various departments, said that the government is prepared to deal with novel Coronavirus.
"We are sending detailed guidelines to all states on ways to contain Coronavirus. Have asked states to strengthen laboratories and manpower to effectively deal with Coronavirus and form early rapid action teams," he said after the meeting.
About 8,74,708 international passengers from 8,255 flights have been screened at airports till now with 1,921 passengers identified as symptomatic, 177 of them have been hospitalised. A total of 33,599 passengers are under observation and 21,867 passengers have completed their observation period.
Meanwhile, Union minister DV Sadananda Gowda has said that there is adequate stock of drugs to contain Coronavirus.
The government has directed the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) to prepare quarantine facilities with a bed capacity to admit over 5,400 people to deal with cases of Coronavirus across the country.
In a related development, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, during a surprise visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, met the family members of students stranded in Iran amid the novel Coronavirus outbreak.
The government has decided to send a C-17 Globemaster military aircraft to Coronavirus-hit Iran on Monday night to evacuate stranded Indians.
In a precautionary measure, Qatar has temporarily banned the entry of people coming from India and 13 other countries in the wake of Coronavirus outbreak.
