More on Covid-19

VISAKHAPATNAM: A total of 185 passengers who landed at Visakhapatnam airport from Kuala Lumpur by Air Asia flight on Wednesday evening were immediately taken to their home states and home towns by specially-arranged buses after clearing screening and immigration at the airport. They will be placed in home quarantine in their respective place of residence.Most of the passengers are students hailing from Kerala and Tamil Nadu while around one-third of them are from different districts of Andhra Pradesh. Apparently, none of them are from Vizag city.As per doctors, all the passengers from Kuala Lumpur, underwent a thermo-scan test. None of them had fever or any visible symptoms of Covid-19. Four medical teams from King George Hospital (KGH) was present at the airport and the passengers were advised home quarantine. A deputy civil surgeon from KGH Dr Madhusudan Prasad has been posted as the airport nodal officer for checking Covid-19 suspects or returnees from abroad.Earlier, it was decided to shift all the passengers to the quarantine ward at Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS) by ambulances. Dr P V Sudhakar, principal of Andhra Medical College (AMC) who is looking into the quarantine arrangement at VIMS said, “Recently, VIMS has scaled up its 75-bed quarantine facility with provision for extending it to 400 beds if required. The strength of the medical staff and doctors has been enhanced from 20 to 50 to check on quarantine cases. If anyone shows symptoms during their quarantine period, they would be shifted to Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases (GHCCD). Six ENT surgeons have been placed at GHCCD to help collect throat swabs of suspects and send them for testing to Kakinada.”Malaysia has reported one of the highest number of Covid-19 positive cases from South-East Asia, with over 700 patients and two deaths, most of the positive cases are linked to a large religious a gathering on March 1 and to Chinese nationals with travel history from China.