Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday decided to open isolation wards, a day after the screening started of passengers travelling from Nepal and China for the coronavirus. Thirty-two students from Kashmir remain stranded in China.
An official said a plan was unrolled to prevent the spread of the virus in the Union Territory. The government ordered the establishment of a control room in the State Surveillance Office in Srinagar and Jammu, quarantine of suspected patients, advisory to all districts and announcements to be made at railways stations and airports.
Isolation wards have been opened at the Government Medical Colleges in Jammu and Srinagar and at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, and in other districts. A special team of doctors and paramedics will be constituted there. “The samples of the suspected cases will be drawn immediately and sent to the National Institute of Biologicals, Pune,” the official said.
Former Finance Minister Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to evacuate Jammu and Kashmir residents, especially students and businessmen, from China. He has sent the details of 32 students stranded in China’s Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak. “The Ministry of External Affairs should airlift them in a special flight,” he said.
