Coronavirus screening in Chennai /TN airports, passengers to provide their blood samples
Posted on: 31/Jan/2020 10:17:23 AM
Coronavirus from Wuhan in China is now spreading to other parts of the world rapidly. Countries have been taking precautionary measures to prevent this issue from spreading.
The news that has come out is passengers who arrive at Chennai and in other airports in TN from Wuhan are needed to provide their blood samples for coronavirus screening. In addition to this, for a time of 28 days, the passengers would be put on home quarantine.
On Thursday, Mr K. Kolandaswamy, DPH, revealed that the screening protocol that was recommended by the union health ministry would begin by Friday, 31st January morning.
For further tests and analysis, the blood samples would be sent to Guindy based King Institute of Preventive Medicine.
After routine screening at the airports, those passengers arriving from other regions in China would continue to be kept on domiciliary quarantine for atleast 28 days.
As per the new protocol, all the passengers coming from South- East Asian nations would be screened. It must be taken into account that nearly 78 patients including 10 Chinese citizens arriving from China were moved to home quarantines and every day a health inspector and a village nurse visit them.
The point is when these patients show influenza-like symptoms then they would be shifted to the hospitals. Mr Kolandaswamy revealed that till now there were no patients with influenza type symptoms. He added that patients on quarantine included students, businessman and employees of corporate and manufacturing firms in China.
On Thursday, Kerala also confirmed India’s first case of coronavirus. Around 170 people have lost their lives to this fast-spreading coronavirus. Presently, WHO and Centre for Disease Control in the US have been monitoring the situation closely.
Health secretary Beela Rajesh spoke about how in Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai the health department had set aside a special unit with 10 beds for those affected with coronavirus. There are beds set aside at the GH in Tambaram that is near to the Chennai airport.
The blood samples that were earlier sent to Pune need not be sent as the health department had received reagents used in the diagnosis of coronavirus.
