Harsh Vardhan chairs meet on coronavirus spread

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan on Monday chaired a high level meeting with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and other top officials over the rising cases of coronavirus in India. Vardhan said that concerted action by all concerned departments was crucial to deal with the crisis.

The meeting was held amid the rising cases of the COVID-19 which have gone up to 43 in India.

In the meeting, the minister stressed upon coordinated action between all concerned departments and agencies, for conducting activities such as contact tracing, community surveillance, hospital management, identification of isolation wards, adequate availability of Personal Protective Equipments and masks and risk communication for mass awareness.

At least 40 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus are active at present in India. The total number of COVID-19 cases reported from India are 43 including three Kerala patients who recovered earlier.

A total of 8,74,708 international passengers from 8,255 flights have been screened at airports till now with 1,921 passengers identified as symptomatic, 177 of them have been hospitalized.

More than 33,599 passengers are under observation out of which 21,867 passengers have completed their observation period.