This Article is From Aug 19, 2014

Ebola Risk Categorisation of Passengers at Indian Airports

Stepping up its vigil against Ebola virus, government has started risk categorisation of passengers from the affected countries at Indian airports as high, medium and low.

The quarantine-cum-isolation health facility at Delhi Airport has not admitted any suspect case for observation or testing today, the Health ministry said.

"It has been recommended that now onwards, the passengers from the affected countries would be categorised at airports to be high, medium and low risk," it said in a statement.

High risk passengers would be those with symptoms and they would be admitted to an identified health facility while medium risk would be those passengers with a known history of contact with a case of Ebola and such passengers would be tracked, it said.

The low risk category would be asymptomatic passengers without any contact history. They would be provided information and they will report to a health facility if symptoms develop, it said.

The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) is tracking all passengers carrying any amount of risk. A total of 353 passengers are being tracked and most of them are in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it said.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,200 people since it began in December 2013, the World Health Organisation said today.

More than 2,200 have been sickened, according to the UN health agency's latest numbers. 
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