As many as 324 Indian nationals are back home from China where an outbreak of deadly novel coronavirus 2019 has occurred, the health experts have urged to the people not to pc and seek authenticated information on coronavirus to keep themselves safe from the infection.
On Friday, an Air India special aircraft fled to Wuhan city of China to bring back over 300 Indian citizens stranded amid nCoV2019 disease outbreak. So far, India has reported only one positive case of novel coronavirus patient, of a student studying the Wuhan University has been reported in Kerala.
A senior official at the health ministry told , "All passengers are normal. They have been shifted to their respective quarantine camps in Manesar and Chawla. Their health screening is undergoing under strict vigilance. A team of doctors are monitoring their health condition."
Speaking about this new superbug, Dr SP Byotra, Chairman, Department of International Medicine and Vice-Chairman, Board of Management Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said, "People should not pc in India as the government is very much cautioned and taking adequate preventive measures. Few people are put in isolation in various cities as a precautionary step and every sample is being tested at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune and another government laboratory. People are advised to maintain good hand hygiene and avoid contact with a person with flu-like symptoms."
Dr Raman Kumar, President of the Academy of Family Physicians of India told that coronavirus is a new bug and therefore we do not have any vaccine or medicine to treat it.
"Management is symptomatic and recovery depends on the immune response of the affected patients. Keeping your immunity high is the key to fight any flu-like infections. To boost immunity, people should eat a complete diet rich in vitamins and minerals. As there are no known management options for the virus, prevention is the only cure," he added.
Meanwhile, the Central government has also appealed to the people to refrain from travelling to China. Since the last two weeks, the union ministry of civil aviation has been conducting the thermal health screening of passengers arriving from China including Hong Kong to 21 airports in India.
The latest update by the World Health Orgsation (WHO) has stated that in China there are about 11,791 nCoV confirmed cases, 1795 severe patients and 259 people have lost their lives. However, a greater number of positive cases are found outside China which including USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Germany, Japan etc. hence WHO has 2019nCoV in China as a 'global health emergency' for international concern.
A novel coronavirus is a new strain of coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans. Common signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In severe cases, the infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure, and even death.
( With inputs from ANI )