Mumbai: Till Friday, 44,517 passengers have undergone screening at the Mumbai International Airport for coronavirus. Field surveillance is also actively underway all across the state in search of people coming from coronavirus-affected areas, state health department officials said.
Dr Pradeep Awate, Maharashtra state disease surveillance officer, said, “From January 18 till date, 77 symptomatic travellers have been isolated in identified isolation facilities. Till Friday, all 77 samples sent by the state have been found negative as per the reports of the National Institute of Virology, Pune. At present four travellers are still in hospital; two each at Mumbai and Pune.”
To increase surge capacity and for future preparedness, the state has set up isolation wards in all district hospitals and government medical colleges. As of today, the state has 39 isolation wards and 361 beds available.
As per guidelines from the MoHF, all passengers coming from Wuhan city of China are being isolated and tested for corona, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic. Whereas follow-ups are being carried out for 14 days of travellers coming from other affected parts. Till date, out of 279 travellers, the 14-day follow-ups of 170 have been completed. Apart from Mumbai, Pune and Thane, travellers are also being monitored in Nanded, Buldhana, Nagpur, Wardha, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Amaravati, Palghar, Jalgaon, Chandrapur and Satara districts.
The coronavirus is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from common cold to acute respiratory syndromes, but the virus that has killed people in China is a novel strain and not seen before. Common symptoms of the novel coronavirus strain are respiratory such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath and breathing difficulties, according to the WHO.
