The Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery has put in place a slew of precautionary measures to prevent coronavirus outbreak.
Special health counters have been opened near the immigration desk to inform inbound passengers from countries suspected to have hit by the virus about the health issues and precautionary measures to be followed.
All touch points have been sanitised. Special masks and gloves have been distributed to all officials deployed at international arrival area.
An isolation ward has been opened in the Kochi Medical College Hospital.
A sterilised ambulance has been kept ready to ferry passengers showing symptoms of the disease to the medical college.
A total of 84 passengers who came by different flights have been screened for novel coronavirus infection till Thursday. All tests have been returned negative. The passengers were allowed to go home after collecting the contact details.
Kochi is one of the seven airports in the country where the ministry of civil aviation has issued high alert following coronavirus outbreak in China. Other airports are: Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and New Delhi.
'Inform DMOs'
State Health minister K K Shyalaja has said those who have returned from China should inform district medical officers besides instructing officials to step up surveillance in all four airports – Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozhikode and Kannur – in the state.
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 people in China is a novel strain not seen before.
China on Friday added four more cities to a transport ban around the epicentre of a deadly virus, restricting the movement of some 41 million people in 13 cities as authorities scramble to control the disease.
Officials in Xianning, Xiaogan, Enshi and Zhijiang cities – all located in central Hubei province where the virus first emerged - said public transport services including buses and train stations would be closed.
The cities are the latest in Hubei to impose travel restrictions over the previous 24 hours in a bid to curb the spread of the new coronavirus which has infected more than 800 people.
The virus first emerged from the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, where a seafood and live animal market has been identified as the centre of the outbreak.
It has killed 26 people so far, and has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). SARS killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
(With inputs from agencies)
