The foreign ministry said on Thursday that no Indian has been found to be affected by the deadly coronavirus in Iran, which has seen over 100 deaths due to the virus, second highest after China, the place of its origin.
Several Indians including students and fishermen are stuck in Iran due to suspension of commercial flights between the two countries and the government is making arrangements for their return.
“As of now, we don’t have any case of any Indian infected with the virus in Iran. Our mission has opened 24X7 helpline,” ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
Kumar said efforts were being made to evacuate the stranded Indians through “normal civil aviation” channels and added that “good cooperation” was needed from the Iranian authorities so that an appropriate screening process can be set up before the Indian nationals can take those flights back home.
“A medical team is about to arrive or may have arrived and they are going to set up a lab to screen the Indian nationals before they can board the flight and they can be brought back to India,” Kumar said.
Kumar said that only people who clear the medical screening will be allowed to board the flight as per the international health protocols set up to deal with coronavirus.
{{/usCountry}}Kumar said that only people who clear the medical screening will be allowed to board the flight as per the international health protocols set up to deal with coronavirus.
{{/usCountry}}Kumar said the Indian mission in Iran was continuously in touch with all the Indians in Iran including pilgrims, fishermen and others and they were being advised to follow health protocols as advised by the WHO (World Health Organisation) and the local authorities.
The spokesperson said there was no confirmation of news reports claiming that around 500 Iranian tourists were missing.
“If a foreigner goes missing, the embassy is the first to know, the embassy than notifies us, we have not been given any such information by the Iranian embassy,” he said, and added, that these people arrived in India before the outbreak and will return once the commercial flights between the two nations resume.
Ravish Kumar added that the Indian embassies across the world were on the job to help Indians.
“There are on the job, wherever you have a certain number of cases, we have opened 24X7 telephone lines to connect to people. External Affairs minister himself, is personally paying a lot of attention to this matter,” Kumar said.
The novel coronavirus, which is also known as the SARS-Cov-2 has infected at least 94,000 people, 3,200 among those have died. It has spread to nearly 80 countries with South Korea, Iran and Italy now accounting for the maximum number of new cases outside China.
The WHO has said that it appears to kill 3.4 out of every 100 people.