n The Government on Thursday sought to allay fears about its preparedness to deal with the deadly coronavirus saying 15,991 people across the country have been kept on community surveillance, 497 of them have been identified as symptomatic cases and isolated while 41 persons have been hospitalised.
The Union Chemical and Fertilizers Ministry has already stocked medicines and other necessary requirements if any untoward incident like China occurs here. Meanwhile, a final sample collection of 404 inmates at an ITBP coronavirus quarantine facility here is being carried out in order to determine if they can be discharged over the next few days.
Dr Harshvardhan, Union Health Minister, after attending the meeting of the high level Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted on the directions of the Prime Minister to review the current status and actions for prevention and management of the pathogen said that one of the three medical students, who had tested positive for novel coronavirus infection and was treated at a hospital in Kerala, has been discharged after recovery.
About the other two, he said subsequent tests indicated significant reduction in "viral load".
"We are still waiting for confirmatory results before discharging them. They are stable and recovering. They will be discharged soon," Vardhan told reporters here.
The minister said 645 Indians and seven Maldivians evacuated from China's Wuhan city kept at the quarantine facilities set up by the Army and Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in and around Delhi, have tested negative for coronavirus.
They will be kept under observation and their samples will be re-tested on day 14 of the quarantine period before being discharged, he said.
Vardhan further said India has extended support to Maldives in testing samples and to Bhutan in managing the disease. "India has also agreed to support Afghanistan in testing samples. India is also extending help to China by sending essential items for combating nCoV as per a commitment made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a goodwill gesture," Vardhan said.
Replying to a query, the Minister said that he was briefed by Union Minister of State for Chemical and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya at the GoM meeting that the ministry has stocked up medical supplies and personal protection equipments and other required materials in case of an outbreak in India.
Vardhan said the Indian government is in touch with the Japan government regarding the two Indian crew infected with coronavirus on board a cruise ship off the Japanese coast. He said that since they have been hospitalized , the ship's quarantine period will get over on February 19. A decision to evacuate them will be taken after this period is over. The Ministry of External Affairs is keeping a close watch on it.
"In fact, the Prime Minister Office is closely watching the entire situation," he said.
Passengers arriving from Thailand and Singapore, besides China and Hong Kong, are being screened for possible exposure to the respiratory virus at 21 identified airports. So far 1,071 samples have been tested, out of which 1,068 were found negative and only three have already tested positive in Kerala, the minister said as he elaborated on how the ministry had traced their contact history.
On the other hand, ITBP in a statement said here that a final sample collection of 404 inmates at an ITBP coronavirus quarantine facility here is being carried out in order to determine if they can be discharged over the next few days. "Final sample collection of all 404 people housed at our quarantine facility is being done by a team of doctors.
While 200 samples have been taken today, the rest will be collected on Friday," ITBP spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey said. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 1,310 China on Thursday while the number of those affected by the deadly virus has spiralled to 48,206.