With coronavirus continuing to spread across the country, the armed forces have set up 11 additional quarantine facilities, in addition to the four presently in operation, the Defence Ministry said. These facilities can be made operational in 24 to 48 hours.
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“There are four such facilities in operation at the moment, at Manesar and Jaisalmer, run by the Army; at Mumbai run by the Navy and at the Hindon air base run by the Indian Air Force (IAF),” the Defence Ministry said in a statement. In addition, more quarantine facilities are being readied and may be made operational within 48-72 hours, if needed, it stated.
These facilities are at Jodhpur, Kolkata and Chennai by the Army, at Visakhapatnam and Kochi by the Navy and at Dundigal near Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur by the IAF.
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The IAF had deployed C-17 Globemaster aircraft to evacuate a few hundred Indian nationals from COVID-19 affected countries and also some people from friendly countries like Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh, US, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Nepal, South Africa and Peru. Several others were also brought in by Air India flights and quarantined at military facilities.
As per standard procedure, evacuated people are being kept under quarantine for a period of 14 days under the supervision of medical authorities.
“The affected are also being provided with facilities to be in touch with their loved ones. Prophylactic measures are also being taken to prevent the spread of the contagion,” the statement added.
