25 Indians trapped in Wuhan; virus reaches S’pore, Vietnam
2 Admitted To Mumbai Hosp As Precaution
TNN & AGENCIES 24.01.2020
Twenty-five Indian students, of whom 20 are from Kerala, are trapped in Wuhan after the Chinese city of 11million was locked down to contain the spread of a new strain of a coronavirus, while 14 students interning at a hospital in Yichang, about 300km from Wuhan, planned to fly to Kolkata from Kunming airport on Thursday night or Friday.
Two of five travellers who have returned to Mumbai from Wuhan and other parts of China have, meanwhile, been admitted to Kasturba Hospital in Chinchpokli, the city’s main isolation facility, as a precautionary measure as the virus, first reported in China, spread to Singapore and Vietnam. It has killed 18 people and affected over 600 in different parts of the world. Officials in Mumbai said that barring a mild cold and cough, the two people admitted to hospital didn’t have any sign of the infection.
A nurse from Kerala working in Saudi Arabia who the Indian government said on Thursday had contracted the new strain of a coronavirus that has started to spread from China turned out not to have been infected.
Indian students at College of Medicine, Wuhan University
1,323 passengers have so far been screened at Mumbai airport
Junior foreign minister V Muraleedhraran rewteeted a tweet from the Indian consulate general in Jeddah to correct his earlier post and said the nurse, who works at Al-Hayat Hospital in Khamis Mushait, was “suffering from MERSCoV & not 2019-NCoV(Wuhan). We request everyone to refrain from sharing incorrect info”. MERS-CoV stands for Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus. The information about the nurse’s health came from Dr Tarik Al Azraqi, chairman, Scientific Regional Infection Control Committee, Aseer Region, Saudi Arabia.
Singapore confirmed that a 68-year-old man, who had come from Wuhan, had contracted the infection and had been isolated for treatment. His travelling companion, too, had been admitted to a hospital for treatment. In Mumbai, officials said the five passengers were put under surveillance soon after they returned from China in the last 48 hours. While three of them are residents of Jogeshwari, Kalyan and Nala Sopara, two are from Pune. “Since the passengers from Kalyanand Nalasopara have shown signs of a mild cold and cough, we have asked them to come and get admitted to Kasturba Hospital so that we can run some checks and rule out any infection,” said the BMC executive health officer, Dr Padmaja Keskar.
Epidemiologist Dr Pradeep Awate said none of them had exhibited any coronavirus symptoms. Two of the five passengers had been to Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. The virus has spread to several countries, including the US, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. “Those two passengers are also currently asymptomatic, like the other three who had been to other parts of China,” said Dr Awate.
The local health officer said that the Nala Sopara traveller, a woman who had stayed in China’s Foshan city — almost 1,000 km south of Wuhan — for six days, had complained of a bodyache and cold when health department officials contacted her but didn’t have fever, a sore throat, abdominal pain or any other symptom.
The Kalyan resident was in Guangzhou — also about 1,000 km south of Wuhan — for six days. Officials said the 36-yearold had a cold and cough even before he travelled to China. He developed fever on January 18, which subsided due to medication by January 20, but he did not fully recover from the bout. “Even a complete blood count test showed normal results. None of his family members showed any symptom,” said an official. Dr Ramesh Bharmal, director of BMC’s major hospitals, said samples taken from them would be sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for testing.
A total of 1,323 passengers returning from China and other affected countries have so far been screened at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) since January 18.
Asked how the identified passengers are being tracked, Awate said: “The passengers are aware of the virus spread and how contagious it can be and hence are cooperating. Our health staff visited them at their homes and now we are keeping track of their health status telephonically.” Usually, any airborne virus has an incubation period of seven to 14 days. “But since this is a new variant of the coronavirus, we don't have conclusive information about its incubation period. Therefore, we have doubled the passenger tracking period to 28 days,” Awate said.
On Monday (January 20), Maharashtra health authorities issued an advisory for the identification, isolation and monitoring of passengers returning from China and other coronavirus-affected Asian countries. “A person with a travel history to the affected countries, mainly China, in the last 14 days or more and presenting an influenza-like illness or severe, acute respiratory illness (SARI), is a suspected patient of the virus. The symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, fever and respiratory problems,” Awate said.
In Wuhan, with airports and rail and road traffic shut down, the students have enough food to last a few days but are worried about how long their enforced isolation will last. “We are sitting in the hostel room, unsure of our future. We are scared and helpless. We need immediate help from our country,” Faisal Nazer, from Karunagapally in Kollam, a final year medical student at Wuhan University’s College of Medicine, told TOI over phone on Thursday evening.
These students were advised by Chinese authorities on January 22 night to vacate the campus by 10 am (7.30 am IST) on January 23. However, they couldn’t leave as all of them had booked tickets from Wuhan airport and had no time to make alternative arrangements. “It is not fear of hunger that worries us at the moment. We are scared that with no air, train or bus tickets from Wuhan to other destinations in China, we are trapped with no help or support. We can’t go out as the Chinese authorities have warned us against moving out of the premises. There is constant inspection by the authorities,” Nazer said.
Aswanth Krishnan of Kottarakkara, Kollam, in his final year at the College of Medicine, was among the students who managed to leave Wuhan for Changsha airport, nearly 340 km from Wuhan, to take a flight to India. He said it was difficult getting out of Wuhan. He and his friends left the hostel on Wednesday, as soon as the advisory to leave was issued, taking with them the bare essentials.
Krishan added that a group of 10-15 students, mainly from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, had left for Guangzhou airport. “At present we have Chinese New Year holidays. Our decision to return to the campus will be based on further developments,” he added.
Full report on www.toi.in
UNDER SCANNER: Thermal screening is being done at the international airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin
2 Admitted To Mumbai Hosp As Precaution
TNN & AGENCIES 24.01.2020
Twenty-five Indian students, of whom 20 are from Kerala, are trapped in Wuhan after the Chinese city of 11million was locked down to contain the spread of a new strain of a coronavirus, while 14 students interning at a hospital in Yichang, about 300km from Wuhan, planned to fly to Kolkata from Kunming airport on Thursday night or Friday.
Two of five travellers who have returned to Mumbai from Wuhan and other parts of China have, meanwhile, been admitted to Kasturba Hospital in Chinchpokli, the city’s main isolation facility, as a precautionary measure as the virus, first reported in China, spread to Singapore and Vietnam. It has killed 18 people and affected over 600 in different parts of the world. Officials in Mumbai said that barring a mild cold and cough, the two people admitted to hospital didn’t have any sign of the infection.
A nurse from Kerala working in Saudi Arabia who the Indian government said on Thursday had contracted the new strain of a coronavirus that has started to spread from China turned out not to have been infected.
Indian students at College of Medicine, Wuhan University
1,323 passengers have so far been screened at Mumbai airport
Junior foreign minister V Muraleedhraran rewteeted a tweet from the Indian consulate general in Jeddah to correct his earlier post and said the nurse, who works at Al-Hayat Hospital in Khamis Mushait, was “suffering from MERSCoV & not 2019-NCoV(Wuhan). We request everyone to refrain from sharing incorrect info”. MERS-CoV stands for Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus. The information about the nurse’s health came from Dr Tarik Al Azraqi, chairman, Scientific Regional Infection Control Committee, Aseer Region, Saudi Arabia.
Singapore confirmed that a 68-year-old man, who had come from Wuhan, had contracted the infection and had been isolated for treatment. His travelling companion, too, had been admitted to a hospital for treatment. In Mumbai, officials said the five passengers were put under surveillance soon after they returned from China in the last 48 hours. While three of them are residents of Jogeshwari, Kalyan and Nala Sopara, two are from Pune. “Since the passengers from Kalyanand Nalasopara have shown signs of a mild cold and cough, we have asked them to come and get admitted to Kasturba Hospital so that we can run some checks and rule out any infection,” said the BMC executive health officer, Dr Padmaja Keskar.
Epidemiologist Dr Pradeep Awate said none of them had exhibited any coronavirus symptoms. Two of the five passengers had been to Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. The virus has spread to several countries, including the US, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. “Those two passengers are also currently asymptomatic, like the other three who had been to other parts of China,” said Dr Awate.
The local health officer said that the Nala Sopara traveller, a woman who had stayed in China’s Foshan city — almost 1,000 km south of Wuhan — for six days, had complained of a bodyache and cold when health department officials contacted her but didn’t have fever, a sore throat, abdominal pain or any other symptom.
The Kalyan resident was in Guangzhou — also about 1,000 km south of Wuhan — for six days. Officials said the 36-yearold had a cold and cough even before he travelled to China. He developed fever on January 18, which subsided due to medication by January 20, but he did not fully recover from the bout. “Even a complete blood count test showed normal results. None of his family members showed any symptom,” said an official. Dr Ramesh Bharmal, director of BMC’s major hospitals, said samples taken from them would be sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for testing.
A total of 1,323 passengers returning from China and other affected countries have so far been screened at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) since January 18.
Asked how the identified passengers are being tracked, Awate said: “The passengers are aware of the virus spread and how contagious it can be and hence are cooperating. Our health staff visited them at their homes and now we are keeping track of their health status telephonically.” Usually, any airborne virus has an incubation period of seven to 14 days. “But since this is a new variant of the coronavirus, we don't have conclusive information about its incubation period. Therefore, we have doubled the passenger tracking period to 28 days,” Awate said.
On Monday (January 20), Maharashtra health authorities issued an advisory for the identification, isolation and monitoring of passengers returning from China and other coronavirus-affected Asian countries. “A person with a travel history to the affected countries, mainly China, in the last 14 days or more and presenting an influenza-like illness or severe, acute respiratory illness (SARI), is a suspected patient of the virus. The symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, fever and respiratory problems,” Awate said.
In Wuhan, with airports and rail and road traffic shut down, the students have enough food to last a few days but are worried about how long their enforced isolation will last. “We are sitting in the hostel room, unsure of our future. We are scared and helpless. We need immediate help from our country,” Faisal Nazer, from Karunagapally in Kollam, a final year medical student at Wuhan University’s College of Medicine, told TOI over phone on Thursday evening.
These students were advised by Chinese authorities on January 22 night to vacate the campus by 10 am (7.30 am IST) on January 23. However, they couldn’t leave as all of them had booked tickets from Wuhan airport and had no time to make alternative arrangements. “It is not fear of hunger that worries us at the moment. We are scared that with no air, train or bus tickets from Wuhan to other destinations in China, we are trapped with no help or support. We can’t go out as the Chinese authorities have warned us against moving out of the premises. There is constant inspection by the authorities,” Nazer said.
Aswanth Krishnan of Kottarakkara, Kollam, in his final year at the College of Medicine, was among the students who managed to leave Wuhan for Changsha airport, nearly 340 km from Wuhan, to take a flight to India. He said it was difficult getting out of Wuhan. He and his friends left the hostel on Wednesday, as soon as the advisory to leave was issued, taking with them the bare essentials.
Krishan added that a group of 10-15 students, mainly from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, had left for Guangzhou airport. “At present we have Chinese New Year holidays. Our decision to return to the campus will be based on further developments,” he added.
Full report on www.toi.in
UNDER SCANNER: Thermal screening is being done at the international airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin
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