Mumbai: The security officer on board the cruise liner Diamond Princess, Sonali Thakkar, who was kept in isolation on the ship until February 26, reached India on Thursday morning along with 124 other Indians.
Her father, Dinesh Thakkar, informed that they have been sent to the Indian Army’s base camp at Manesar, where they will be in quarantine for the next 14 days. “The doctors at the base camp have taken the blood samples of Sonali for further testing. But she had to stay at the camp until the test reports are out,” he said.
All of them were brought to India by an Air India special flight from Japan. The 114 Indian nationals include 9 females and 105 males, while the foreign nationals include one from Nepal, two from Sri Lanka, one from Peru and another from South Africa.
The evacuees will be monitored for two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. If any individual is suspected to be infected, then he or she will be shifted to an isolation ward at the Base Hospital Delhi Cantonment (BHDC).
Daily medical examination of all personnel will be done at the medical facility area,” said a health official. After 14 days, persons with no symptoms will be allowed to go home with their detailed documentation sent to the district/state units for further surveillance.
Meanwhile, those found infected will be shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital isolation ward for further medical exams and recovery. Samples will be sent to the Department of Virology AIIMS and confirmation will be done by NCDC. Patients will be discharged only after clinical recovery and two successive negative samples tested for n-COVID19.
No one will be allowed to interact with members of another barrack. As many as 138 Indians including 132 crew and six passengers were among the 3,711 people on board the luxury cruise ship, which was quarantined off the Japanese coast on February 5 after it emerged that a former passenger had tested positive for the virus.
Of these, 16 were tested positive for coronavirus and will stay in Japan for treatment, while the remaining will be repatriated to India. The repatriation is being facilitated by the Indian government.
According to the latest official data, over 81,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide. More than 30,000 people have been cured of the disease, with over 2,600 of those having been cleared in the last 24 hours.
