All international passengers arriving in India from Wednesday onwards will be screened for coronavirus, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said.
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday, the health minister said, “...we will not limit our screening to just 12 countries as we did earlier.” The announcement comes soon after 14 Italians and the Indian who drove them around Rajasthan tested positive for the virus on Wednesday.
As of Wednesday, India has 28 positive cases of coronavirus, including the 15 Italians who were tested positive, the health minister. On Tuesday, an Italian tourist in Jaipur had tested positive for coronavirus. On Wednesday, his wife and 13 other Italian tourists have also tested positive for the virus, taking the tally of Italians to 15. The Indian driver who accompanied the tourists and drove them around for sightseeing has also tested positive for coronavirus.
Adding that so far 5.89 lakh people have been screened at airports across the country, the minister said that over 10 lakh people have been screened on Nepal borders alone.
The DGCA had earlier issued a circular to screen all passengers arriving in Indian airports from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Italy and Iran were added to the screening list on Monday, after the number of confirmed cases in both these countries increased.
The announcement to screen all passengers arriving on international flights comes after a techie who landed in Bengaluru tested positive on his return from Dubai, according to the Times of India. The techie had not been screened on arrival at the airport because the DGCA directive did not mandate the screening of passengers arriving from Dubai.