India reported its first Coronavirus casualty on Friday after Ministry of Health said a 76-year-old man, who died on his way from Hyderabad to his hometown Kalaburagi on Tuesday, has tested positive for COVID-19 virus.
The man had returned to India on February 29 after a month-long stay in Saudi Arabia and had been screened on arrival at Hyderabad airport. He had displayed no symptoms at that time.
With travel restrictions put in place in order to contain the deadly Coronavirus, about 120 Indians will be evacuated from the coronavirus-hit Iran in an Air India flight on Friday and will be quarantined at an Army facility in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, a defence spokesperson said on Thursday.
“They will be quarantined at an Indian Army facility created under the aegis of Southern Command. The patients will be transferred from the airport post their initial screening to the quarantine facility under escort of civil administration,” defence spokesperson Col Sombit Ghosh said.
He said that another batch of approximately 250 people, to be airlifted from Iran on March 15, will also be quarantined at the Army facility in Jaisalmer. The Ministry of Defence has set up seven more quarantine facilities for COVID-19 patients, especially for Indian citizens being brought to back from coronavirus-hit countries.The facilities have been set up at Jaisalmer, Suratgadh, Jhansi, Jodhpur, Deolali, Kolkata and Chennai.