Contributing to the national effort in fighting corona virus pandemic, the armed forces have so far evacuated 1,186 Indian citizens from foreign countries. At present, 796 people are in quarantine facilities under military supervision and only two of them have tested positive. They are now undergoing treatment in civil hospitals.
Giving this information here on Tuesday, officials said those evacuated included medical staff and air crew. The defence forces had taken suitable measures nearly a month back after the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan, China and set up quarantine facilities all over the country. These included 12 such camps of the army besides at least quarantine and isolation facilities of the Navy in Mumbai,Kochi and Visakhapatnam.
The naval base, Kochi under Southern Naval Command (SNC), is gearing up to provide quarantine facilities for Indian nationals and is also actively coordinating with the Kerala state health officials and Ernakulam district administration to explore the feasibility of provisioning civil hotels/resorts for quarantining. Besides all Army Hospitals have been kept on alert to meet any eventuality.
Meanwhile, in view of the measures instituted to contain spread of COVID-19 including social distancing, the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme(ECHS) has allowed veterans having lifestyle diseases on long treatment to purchase all medicines at once based on the prescription for the month of April.
An order regarding this said “One time sanction is hereby accorded to reimburse the above expenditure under individual reimbursement of medical claims. The bills for reimbursement to be submitted by veterans after May 15, 2020.”
Retired soldiers and officers having lifestyle diseases on long treatment may purchase one month requirement of all medicines based on the prescription held -- prescribed by polyclinic, service hospital and empanelled hospital — for the month of April, the order stated. Veterans need not go to Polyclinics to collect the medicines for the month of April, the order stated, adding, “This will be implemented with immediate effect till April 30, 2020.”