COVID-19: 215 people at ITBP quarantine facility asymptomatic after a week

The 215 people evacuated from Italy in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak early this week and staying at an ITBP quarantine facility are doing fine and are asymptomatic, a senior official said on Saturday.

The group of a total of 218 people came to India from Milan on-board a special Air India flight and was admitted to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police-run facility in south-west Delhi's Chhawla area on March 15.

Three among them have been shifted to speciality hospitals after they reported positive for coronavirus following their first test, the official said. "The 215 evacuees from Italy have completed seven days of quarantine on Saturday. No fresh symptoms have been observed," a spokesperson of the border guarding force said.

There are 151 males and 64 females in the group comprising largely of students, he said. The official said doctors of the force are conducting daily checkups of the inmates.

"The second and final sampling of the inmates will be done on the 14th day of the quarantine period and if those results are negative, then all these 215 people will be released from the centre," he said.

This ITBP facility has earlier catered to two such batches of Indians and foreigners, evacuated from Wuhan in China, comprising a total of 518 people. All of them were later released after their tests came negative post the mandatory quarantine period of over a fortnight.

(Image for representation, credits: PTI)