Virus scare: Thermal screening done for passengers arriving from China expanded to seven Indian airports

The airports are Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin apart from three airports at Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata identified earlier.

"This is in continuation to the Advisory from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and National Centre for Disease Control, Directorate General of Health Services, under Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India regarding threat of ‘Novel Corona Virus Disease (nCoV) in Wuhan, Hubei province of China," read a government statement.

MoCA has called for immediate implementation of the action plan and strict adherence by identified airports and all concerned airlines. The action plan among others includes the following:

In order to facilitate early isolation, In-flight announcements to be made by the airlines (which are directly coming from any airport in China including Hong Kong) requesting passengers with history of fever and cough and history of travel to Wuhan City in last 14 days to self-declare at port of arrival or to State Health Authorities.

Airlines staff to guide the passengers in filling up the self-reporting forms before disembarkation so that the filled up format can be checked by APHO staff on arrival.

Airport signage to be displayed boldly at the strategic locations of these seven identified airports

Health Screening at Airports: Thermal Screening of passengers to be undertaken. Provision of space at the pre-immigration area with logistics to install the thermal cameras to be made at these airports. Airlines staff to bring the passengers to the Health counters before the immigration check.

Operational procedures recommended by International Air Transport Association (IATA) with regard to managing suspected communicable disease on board an aircraft.