All 645 evacuated from Wuhan test negative for coronavirus

All 645 people evacuated from China's Wuhan city, who were lodged at the quarantine facilities set up by the Army and Indo Tibetan Border Police in and around Delhi, have tested negative for coronavirus, the Union health ministry said on Thursday.

It said that as on February 6, 1,38,750 passengers from 1,265 flights had been screened for the nCoV illness but no new case has been detected.

India has so far reported three confirmed cases of nCoV from Kerala.

Three medical students studying at the Wuhan University, all natives of Kerala, who returned to India on their own recently and self-reported at a hospital in the state have tested positive for the respiratory virus.

"All 645 evacuees from Wuhan, China have tested negative for novel coronavirus," the ministry said.

A total of 1,202 samples have been tested as of Thursday which includes the samples of 645 people lodged at the quarantine centres set up by the Army in Haryana's Manesar and the ITBP in Chawla camp.

"All the 645 people have tested negative. Samples of all these individuals will be re-tested on day 14 of the quarantine period," it said.

Besides, 557 samples from suspected cases throughout the country were referred to ICMR network laboratories, out of which 510 tested negative and three were confirmed laboratory positive for nCoV.

The rest of the samples are under the process.

Community surveillance and contact tracing is being carried out by IDSP for 6,558 persons across 32 states/UTs.

The Fourth Joint Monitoring Group meeting was held on Thursday under the Directorate General of Health Services to discuss technical issues, including the review period of the follow up required for asymptomatic travellers from China.

The health ministry in coordination with central ministries and all states/UTs is taking adequate measures for management of nCoV in India, the ministry said.

On the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Group of Ministers has been formed to review, monitor and evaluate the preparedness to contain the deadly nCoV infection in the country.

The GoM held its first meeting on Monday.

As part of India's preparedness, passengers arriving from Thailand and Singapore, besides China and Hong Kong, are being screened for possible exposure to nCoV at all the 21 airports.

Screening is also being conducted at international seaports and border crossings.

Meanwhile, the government on Wednesday issued an updated travel advisory saying the existing visas (including e-visa already issued) are no longer valid for any foreign national travelling from China.

The health ministry has asked people to refrain from travelling to the country in view of the coronavirus outbreak in its Hubei province and said travellers on return could be quarantined.

The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 563 in China on Tuesday while the number of those affected by the deadly disease has crossed 28,018.

One death was reported earlier this week from the Philippines.

So far, the virus has spread to Thailand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Macau, Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Russia, Finland, Spain, UAE and Sweden.