Indians urged to skip China trips, flights cancelled

New Delhi: The Union health ministry on Wednesday asked Indians to refrain from travelling to China where the novel coronavirus has claimed over 130 lives. A number of airlines are seeing heavy cancellations over the outbreak of coronavirus in China, and on Wednesday Air India and IndiGo announced cancellations of some of their flights to China.

While IndiGo said it has decided to suspend its flights on the Bengaluru-Hong Kong route from February 1 and on the Delhi-Chengdu route from February 1 to 20 due to the coronavirus outbreak, Air India said it will suspend flights on the Delhi-Shanghai route from January 31 to February 14.

India has also requested China for permission to operate two evacuation flights from Hubei province to fly back Indian nationals from Wuhan city and other parts of the province in view of the coronavirus outbreak. The MEA said permission was sought from China, adding that the Indian embassy in Beijing was working on the logistics with the Chinese authorities.

Air India has six flights a week on the Delhi-Shanghai route and IndiGo has three daily flights to China. Both these airlines, along with SpiceJet, have waived ticket cancellation/rebooking charges till February 24.

“In view of the #CoronavirusOutbreak, SpiceJet is offering waiver of cancellation/change fee (fare difference if any will be applicable) for all flights to/from Hong Kong between 24th January and 24th February 2020,” Spicejet tweeted.

“After carefully assessing the current coronavirus situation in China, IndiGo is taking some safety measures for its customers, crew and staff. Due to China travel restrictions, we have seen a high number of cancellations from China on our Delhi-Chengdu route and vice versa. Therefore, we are suspending our flights between Delhi and Chengdu from February 1 until February 20. We are also suspending our Bengaluru-Hong Kong flight effective February 1,” IndiGo said. “We understand that these measures will cause inconvenience to our customers and we will be refunding the full amount to the impacted passengers,” it added.

However, IndiGo clarified that for now, it will continue to operate the Kolkata-Guangzhou flight which it is monitoring on a daily basis. “And for our operating crew, we are ensuring that they return to India on the inbound flights without any layover in China,” it said. The crew of airlines operating on the China route have been told to take utmost precautions and wear masks while not on duty and to avoid public places.

In India, many people are under observation in hospitals for suspected infections, including in Maharashtra, Goa, Odisha and the national capital. People returning to the country after visiting China are being regularly screened for the deadly virus at airports across the country. The virus, which has killed 132 people and affected at least 6,000 others in China, is a novel strain not seen before.

The Ayush ministry has issued an advisory and recommended that homeopathic and unani medicine could be effective in the prevention of novel coronavirus infections. It also mentioned some Ayurvedic practices which can help recess the symptoms of respiratory tract in possible coronavirus infected cases.

On Tuesday, the scientific advisory board of the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy (CCRH), under the Ayush ministry, discussed ways to prevent the nCoV infection through homoeopathy. It recommended that homoeopathic medicine Arsenicum album 30 could be taken empty stomach daily for three days as a preventive medicine against the infection. The dose should be repeated after one month in case the nCoV infection prevails in the community, the advisory said, adding that the same was also advised for prevention of influenza-like illnesses.

The advisory suggests general hygienic measures for prevention of airborne infections such as washing hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, avoiding touching eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands, and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.

India is among the top 30 countries at “high risk” from the spread of the deadly coronavirus, according to a study based on the number of air travellers predicted to arrive in countries from the worst-hit cities in China. Researchers from the UK’s University of Southampton have compiled a list of cities and countries they believe are at high risk from the novel coronavirus. The most “at risk” countries or regions worldwide are Thailand (1), Japan (2), and Hong Kong (3). The United States is sixth on the list, Australia 10th, the UK 17th and India 23rd, the researchers said in the study released on Tuesday.

A significant number of Indian students study at Wuhan, the central Chinese industrial city which is the epicentre of the outbreak. It is an educational hub with prestigious technical and medical education institutes.