NEW DELHI, Jan 31 (NNN-BSS) — An Air India special flight is ready to depart for Wuhan city in China’s Hubei province for airlifting the Indians trapped in the region amid a raging coronavirus outbreak, official sources said.
The Boeing 747 will start from Mumbai and make a brief halt in Delhi, from where the Chinese city is six hours away by flight.
Over 325 Indians are waiting to be picked up at Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak that claimed over 200 lives so far, media reports said here.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar earlier told reporters that the government has established contact with 600 of the estimated 1,200 Indians residing in Hubei province.
The flight will include all necessary resources like masks, medical equipment, packed food, prescribed medicines along with a team of five doctors from the health ministry and paramedical personnel from the airline.
The flight will return to New Delhi Saturday.
The crews have been instructed to only allow non-infected people into the aircraft equipped with masks, gloves and medicines, media reports said citing official sources.
India reported its first case of coronavirus infection on Thursday, identifying the patient as a Kerala student from Wuhan University. — NNN-BSS