Coronavirus outbreak: Government tells people to avoid visiting China

New Delhi: In a fresh travel advisory in the backdrop of outbreak of Novel coronavirus in Wuhan province of China, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked people to refrain from travelling to China.

The ministry on Wednesday said in a tweet: "New travel advisory on Novel #Coronavirus: Please refrain from travelling to #China."

The ministry also informed that the list of airports for screening passengers for symptoms of nCoV2020 has been increased to 21. This includes airports of Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Cochin, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Guwahati, Gaya, Bagdogra, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chennai, Trivandrum, Trichy, Varanasi, Vizag, Bhubaneswar and Goa.

The novel coronavirus is a new strain of the virus that spread from Wuhan province of China and brought the city to lockdown. The Indian government is also on high alert and is taking all preventive measures in order to stop the virus entering the country as many people travel to India from China and visa versa on a daily basis. The ministry has also deployed health teams in districts bordering Nepal and Bangladesh in the wake of the confirmed case of Wuhan Virus in neighbourhood Nepal.

Chinese health authorities on Wednesday said the death toll due to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in the country has increased to 132, with 5,974 confirmed cases in 31 provincial-level regions.

India stands at 23rd position amongst the top 30 countries at high risk from the spread of the 2019 coronavirus (2019-nCoV) researchers have identified. The most 'at risk' countries or regions worldwide are Thailand (1), Japan (2) and Hong Kong (3). The US is placed 6th on the list, Australia 10th, the UK 17th and India 23rd, the study said.