Coronavirus: 263 Indians evacuated from Italy sent to ITBP quarantine

New Delhi, March 22

A batch of 263 Indians evacuated from Italy in view of the COVID-19 outbreak there were brought back to the country on Sunday and sent to an ITBP quarantine facility, officials said.

“The special flight had 263 passengers. It landed at around 10 am at Delhi airport from Rome,” an Air India official said.

The Air India flight had taken off from the Delhi airport on Saturday.

All arriving passengers have currently cleared the immigration area and are undergoing secondary medical screening. In the meantime, we have also started to sanitize the T3 piers area for the next set of flyers.#JanataCurfew #Covid_19india #IndiaFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/zd7BUvEKwH

— Delhi Airport (@DelhiAirport) March 22, 2020

“All the 263 people are being taken to our quarantine centre in Chhawla area of south-west Delhi after thermal screening and immigration at the tarmac,” an ITBP spokesperson said.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police quarantine already has 215 Indians housed since March 15 after they were similarly evacuated by a special Air India flight from Rome.

The facility has earlier hosted two such batches of Indians and foreigners who were brought back from Wuhan in China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. —PTI