India has taken the novel coronavirus threat very seriously and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself is leading the efforts from the front to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Interacting with media on Wednesday, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said, Prime Minister himself is monitoring the situation on day to day basis. Javadekar said, the Government is making all efforts to counter the threat from Coronavirus. He said, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary are holding meetings with the Chief Secretaries and other concerned officials of all the State through video conferencing on day to day basis. Health Ministry is also maintaining a close watch on the situation, especially in setting up of Isolation Wards across the country and screening of the people coming to India from abroad.

Javadekar also informed that Passengers are being screened at all the 21 international airports and so far six lakh visitors have been screened. About one million people have been screened in the border areas adjoining Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. He said, villages in border areas adjoining neighboring countries are also being taken care of.

Javadekar said, apart from the one Virology Lab in the country at Pune, the Government has set up 15 new Virology Labs and 19 more will be set up within one week across the country. He said, travel advisories have also been issued. Besides, a big awareness campaign has been launched across the country especially in schools, colleges and elsewhere and people are being made aware about the “Do’s and Don’ts” to prevent possible infection.

The government has said that India is well prepared to prevent the spread of COVID19. Home Ministry spokesperson, Vasudha Gupta in a tweet said that all land ports under the Ministry have fully equipped medical teams that are present across states to screen all incoming passengers from neighboring countries. She said, medical check-up is ongoing at Dera Baba Nanak and Attari and full check up and scanning is being undertaken at all landports and status report is being submitted on a daily basis.

Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS, Dr Randeep Guleria has said that there is no need to panic about the novel coronavirus and suggested for maintaining respiratory etiquettes to stay away from the infection. Dr Guleria said that the common symptoms of coronavirus are mild to moderate fever, sore throat, bodyache, cold and flu. He said, in case of infection, most of the people have mild upper respiratory infection and it is self limiting.

Experts have advised people to follow basic protective measures so that they can keep themselves away from the Novel Coronavirus.

For further information, people can call at Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 24 X 7 Control Room number 011-23978046 and email at ncov2019[at]gmail[dot]com