IAF To The Rescue As India To Send 3rd Aircraft To Coronavirus-Hit Wuhan To Bring Back Citizens
A C-17 military transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force will fly to Wuhan in China on Wednesday, the epicenter of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak to evacuate Indian nationals stranded in the locked-down city who could not have been brought back earlier.?
¡°As informed by the Ministry of External Affairs, departure of the Air Force flight to Wuhan is being planned for February 26 and the evacuees will arrive on February 27,¡± the Union Health Ministry said in a statement.?
India has been trying to dispatch the C-17, the largest military aircraft of the IAF to Wuhan for some days now, but it was delayed due to the lack of clearance from the Chinese authorities.?
According to a health ministry official, China has now given clearance to the Indian military transport aircraft.Earlier, the Chinese had allowed Japan, Ukraine and France to operate flights between February 16 and 20 but India's request had was not approved.?
A Chinese Embassy spokesperson had told PTI that there was no deliberate delay in grant of permission for the Indian flight to reach Wuhan.?
The aircraft will carry a large consignment of medical supplies to China and bring back more Indians from Wuhan.The flight which will depart on Wednesday will return to India on Thursday.?
This will the third Indian flight which will be bringing back Indian nationals who were in the worst-hit city of Wuhan.The previous batch of Indian evacuees who were quarantined in the ITBP facility in Haryana has been allowed to go home after their tests turned out to be negative.?
Union Health minister Harsh Vardhan, who undertook a review of the ongoing novel coronavirus management across the country with the senior officials of the Ministry, informed that at present the screening of passengers is being done in all 21 airports, 12 major and 65 non-major seaports and border crossings.In all 4,48,449 passengers from 4,214 flights have been screened so far.
Also, as of now, 2,707 samples have been tested of which only three samples earlier had tested positive and all the three patients have been discharged from the hospitals. They are now in home isolation.In furtherance to the travel advisory issued earlier in the wake of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, the government on Saturday advised citizens to avoid all non-essential travel to Singapore.?
Also flight passengers coming to India from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore , Japan, Kathmandu, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia are being screened at 21 designated airports in the country for a possible exposure to the novel coronavirus.
