Coronavirus Outbreak: Special Air India Flight With Stranded Indians From Wuhan To Arrive Home Today

A special Air India aircraft on Friday reached Wuhan in central China to evacuate Indians stranded in the cornonavirus-hit city. The aircraft is expected to take off from Wuhan's Tianhe International Airport with more than 370 Indians early on Saturday. Menwhile, many Indians were taken to the airport from different parts of locked down Wuhan in buses on Friday evening and were screened for symptoms of novel coronavirus infection before being allowed to board.

While the official number of students to be airlifted is not known, Indians who reached the Wuhan airport on Friday said they were told that 374 were expected to be airlifted by the Air India flight.

India will operate two flights from Wuhan to airlift around 400 students stranded in Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus, officially known as 2019-nCoV. A second flight is likely to be dispatched on Saturday to evacuate the remaining Indians in the Hubei province. While Friday's flight is scheduled to take mostly those stranded in Wuhan, Saturday's flight is expected to take those held up in Hubei province.

The airport, which was earlier closed for all air traffic, has been opened in the last two days to allow a number of countries to evacuate their nationals.

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Wuhan is the provincial capital of Hubei province. Over 700 Indians, mostly medical students and research scholars, study in the local universities. Many had left for home earlier to avail the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival Holidays.

The Indians being evacuated from Wuhan will have to be mandatorily quarantined for 14 days after they return. The quarantine is to ensure that in case anyone among them is a carrier, she or he is not able to infect another person.

A team of five doctors from Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, one paramedical staff from Air India, with prescribed medicines from doctors, masks, overcoats, packed food are in the aircraft. The whole rescue mission is being lead by Captain Amitabh Singh, Director (Operations), Air India, the spokesman said, adding that there are five cockpit crew and 15 cabin crew on Friday's special flight. However, there will be no interaction between cabin crew and passengers. The passengers' food will be left in seat pockets.

As many as 213 have died and more than 9600 have been infected, as the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health emergency. About 20 countries, including India, the UK, US, South Korea, Japan and France, have reported confirmed cases of the virus in travellers coming from China.