A special flight from Iran arrived at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport early on Saturday morning with swab samples of 110 Indians who are currently stranded in the country after a rapid spread of the coronavirus infection that Tehran is trying to control.
The samples have been sent to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to check if the people are infected with the virus, an officer at the airport said on condition of anonymity.
A Mahan Air flight arrived at the Delhi airport around 6.30am with the samples. The swab samples were collected and were directly sent to the ICMR, the official said. The samples of the Indians are likely to be tested at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
To ensure that the Indians being brought back from Iran are disease-free, India has been making arrangements to test the passengers stranded in Iran in order to clear them in batches.
“Those passengers who test positive for Covid-19 will not be allowed to board the flight to India. They will be isolated at a health facility in Iran itself. Those whose test samples return negative will be evacuated from there,” said a senior health ministry official, asking not to be named.
India has sent a six-member team of scientists from ICMR to Iran to set up a make-shift laboratory there so that people can be tested before flying back. However, till the time the lab is set up, experts will be taking swab samples and shipping them to India for testing. The team is in Tehran with necessary equipment that is capable of conducting at least 600 tests.
{{/usCountry}}India has sent a six-member team of scientists from ICMR to Iran to set up a make-shift laboratory there so that people can be tested before flying back. However, till the time the lab is set up, experts will be taking swab samples and shipping them to India for testing. The team is in Tehran with necessary equipment that is capable of conducting at least 600 tests.
{{/usCountry}}The embassy of Iran in New Delhi facilitated and issued visas for the visit of six experts from ICMR and the ministry of health and family welfare.
“The Indian citizens with no symptoms of coronavirus will be transferred to India and those whose medical test results are positive will be hospitalised in one of the advanced special medical centres designated by the Ministry of Health of the I. R. of Iran,” a statement by the embassy said.
“…considering more and adequate flights to New Delhi and Mumbai to ensure bringing back home all the stranded nationals of both countries.”
The flights that bring swab samples to India will fly back Iranians from the country. The first such special flight on Saturday morning flew back with 125 Iranians who were living in India.
At around 9am, the flight departed the Delhi airport with 125 Iranians onboard.
Elaborating on the flight, the airport officer said: “The Iranians were stuck in India and could not go back to their country as March 3 onwards, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, passenger movements to and from five countries have been suspended. The five countries are – Iran, Italy, South Korea, Japan and China.”