Further to this India has also introduced an additional step of marking the passenger arriving from most affected countries and compelling self-isolation or home quarantine for the 14 days upon arriving in India. If such passengers passing thermal screening test are later tested positive for 2019-nCoV, challenges this approach as body temperature screening could miss the passenger incubating the disease or concealing the fever by other means during the travel. However, it has been noticed that asymptomatic contact transmission of 2019-nCoV and passengers successfully passing the symptom-based screening have been tested positive for 2019-nCoV. Right from the early days of the pandemic, body temperature screening to verify if the traveler has a fever, as an indication for the infection, as a major test was introduced at all international airports in India. Eventually, India then suspended all international flights to curb the domestic spread due to 2019-nCoV on 25th March 2020.
Since then India has registered ~ 657 cases till 25th March, out of which ~ 62% were reported to be the imported cases travelling from various other affected countries. India, the second most populous country in the world with total population of ~ 1.35 billion inhabitants, registered its first case on 30th of January 2020, as a 20-year-old female medical student, along with two other students, travelled from Wuhan to the south-western state, Kerala. There is no doubt that 2019-nCoV outbreak is posing the serous risk for human well-being and the world economy. Since the detection of the first case in December 2019 in China, the 2019-nCoV has already reached in more than 200 countries/territories, with ~ 62% of infected cases are being in USA (26.3%), Spain (10.4%), Italy (10.2%), Germany (7.9%), and France (7.1%). Since then 2019-nCoV was exported to many cities across the globe and ~ 3.09 million people have been infected due to 2019-nCoV resulting in more than 200,000 deaths across the globe as on 28th April 2020, marking this as one of the biggest pandemics in this century. Further investigations traced the origin of 2019-nCoV to a local Huanan seafood market. The specific pathogen triggering this viral pneumonia, on 7th January 2020, was identified by Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and was named 2019-nCov, the new coronavirus, by the World Health Organization. In December 2019, health authorities from Wuhan, Hubei province in China, local hospital were monitoring and reported group of pneumonia cases. We suggest that any future travel related disease infection screening at the airports should critically assess the passengers from major transit hubs in addition to affected country of origin. We further argue that while the number of cases in middle eastern countries may still be very low, the airports in middle eastern countries, particularly Dubai, being one of the largest transit hubs for international passengers, including arriving in India, might have posed a higher risk of getting infected with 2019-nCoV.
The number of cases in India started exhibiting a sharp increase in the infected cases only after the European countries and USA recorded large number of infected cases. This is clearly evident form the fact that while the number of infected cases were on the peak in China India was one of the least affected countries. Contrary to perception, travelers from China imposed lowest risk of importing the infected cases in India. Here, by extracting the data from FLIRT, an online airline database for more than 800 airlines, and scanning more than 180,000 flights and 39.9 million corresponding passenger seats during 4th – 25th March, we show that India experienced the highest risk index of importing the passengers from middle eastern airports. For a country like India, the second most populous country in the world with ~ 1.35 billion population, the management and control of 2019-nCoV domestic spread heavily relied on effective screening and strict quarantine of passengers arriving at various international airports in India from affected countries. The importation of the cases owing to enormous international travels from the affected countries is the foremost reason for local cycle of transmission. The recent pandemic caused by the 2019 outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV or COVID-19) has affected more than 3.0 million people resulting ~ 212,000 deaths across 215 countries/territories as on 28th April 2020.
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