High alert at Chennai Airport

Following the outbreak of a new flu-like coronavirus in China, the Civil Aviation ministry has directed seven airports including Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata to make arrangements for the screening of passengers arriving from China.

According to an official statement, airlines flying in from any airport in China including Hong Kong have been asked to make in-flight announcements requesting passengers with a 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. A statement from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) read, “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.”

Coronavirus, that originated from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, affects the respiratory tract of the infected person. Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).