COVID-19: High alert at Hyderabad airport

The State health officials on Thursday urged people to remain alert and continue taking basic precautions against the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which causes COVID-19 disease.

So far, there has been no sign of community transmission of COVID-19 in Telangana. And to ensure it remains that way, authorities have focussed their energies in identifying international passengers at Shamshabad airport and putting them under home isolation.

The government urged air travellers to co-operate with the surveillance authorities at RGIA, Shamshabad. “International travellers must cooperate and volunteer to be under home isolation for 14 days. Our tracking teams through the 104 call centre will be in touch with them on a daily basis. They should not interact with their family members at any cost,” said Health Minister Etela Rajender, after a review meeting on COVID-19 with senior health officials.

The State Government procured three additional standing thermal screening machines, which will speed-up screening of passengers at



Shamshabad airport. There was only one standing thermal screening machine and a few hand-held devices to check temperatures of passengers at Shamshabad airport, which was delaying the process of screening.

Authorities now have multiple screening machines to speed-up the process of screening and reduce queues at exit points.

The health teams at the airport on Thursday screened 2,881 passengers out of which 11 passengers with suspected symptoms of COVID-19 were admitted to government hospitals while 71 passengers have been advised to be under home quarantine. The samples of the 11 passengers have already been collected and two samples have tested negative while test results of the remaining nine are expected to be released on Friday.

Since the onset of COVID-19, the health officials here have collected samples from 313 passengers out of which 300 have tested negative, one person tested positive for COVID-19 and test samples of 12 passengers are expected to arrive in a day.