Thermal screening of passengers flying in at seven airports

New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry has directed seven airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata to make arrangements for screening of passengers arriving from China in the wake of outbreak of an infection caused by a new strain of virus there.

Airlines flying in from any airport in China including Hong Kong have been asked to make in-flight announcements requesting passengers with history of fever and cough and travel to Wuhan city in the past 14 days to self-declare at the port of arrival in order to facilitate early isolation, according to an official statement on Tuesday.

This is in continuation to the travel advisory issued by the Union Health Ministry regarding threat of novel coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei province of China asking citizens to follow certain precautionary measures while visiting the country.

As part of an action plan by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), airlines staff will also guide the passengers in filling up the self-reporting forms, before disembarking, to be checked by staff on arrival. "The MoCA has directed for all logistics support and arrangements to be made immediately with regard to screening of passengers arriving in India from China including Hong Kong at the identified airports -- Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin apart from three airports at Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata identified earlier," the statement said.

The action-plan includes thermal screening of passengers to be undertaken, it said.

Thermal cameras will be installed at the pre-immigration area of the seven identified airports and airlines staff will bring the passengers to the health counters before the immigration check.

The coronavirus (CoV) is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from the common cold to acute respiratory syndromes, but the virus that has killed four people in China is a novel strain not seen before.