Two Sudanese nationals with the words ‘yellow fever’ on their passports triggered panic on Monday night in Chennai followed by a series of measures including quarantining the passengers.
Officials told The New Indian Express that it was only a precautionary step, adding that the two will be allowed to leave once formalities are over.
Yellow fever is a particularly nasty acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by mosquitoes – the yellow refers to jaundice that affects some of the patients.
The alarm was triggered after Mahmoud Abdelrhman Elraj (55) and Alwaleed Ahmed Abdalgader Salim (25), from Khartoon in Sudan landed at Chennai international airport at around 10 pm on Monday.
During the routine screening for infectious diseases, doctors part of the health department medical team at the airport found their passports had stamped as having been vaccinated for yellow fever, but there was no mention of the date of vaccination.
“The confusion was caused by the absence of the date of vaccination,” Dr Isaac Christian Moses, dean (in-charge), Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital told Express.
The passengers who have now been kept under observation at Ward 215, the ward for infectious diseases, showed no symptoms of the fever and have no other health complications.