263 Indian evacuees from Rome sent to ITBP camp

All the 263 Indians evacuated from Rome in an Air India national passenger carrier on Sunday morning have been shifted to an Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) quarantine centre here.

Soon after the evacuees landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) from Rome at around 9.15 a.m. and went through a proper medical observation, they were shifted to the ITBP's Chhawla quarantine facility in west Delhi.

Of the 263, 208 are male while 55 female and most of them are students aged between 25 and 30 years.

The evacuees were sent to the Chhawla camp in different ITBP buses after they completed the thermal scanning and immigration formalities at the airport, ITBP Spokesperson Vivek Pandey told IANS, adding their preliminary coronavirus test in Italy was found negative.

"All the 263 evacuees will be kept for a minimum of 14 days at the ITBP quarantine facility under close observation."

With these evacuees, the total number of occupants currently being facilitated at the ITBP camp is 478. A batch of 215 evacuees from Milan in Italy are still there in the ITBP's Chhawla camp. They are part of those 218 who were shifted to the camp on March 15 after their evacuation from Milan. Two of them have been shifted to the Safdarjung hospital after they were found positive symptoms of coronavirus while one has been allowed to go home as he was found negative. Others are also tested negative.

This is the fifth batch of evacuees which has been shifted to the ITBP centre in Chhawla so far.

Accordingly, Air India had sent a Boeing 777 aircraft to Rome-Fiumicino International Airport in Italy on Saturday to bring back stranded Indians amid the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak which has claimed the lives of over 10,000 people across the globe.

As per a senior Air India official, the flight was operated on a Boeing 777 extended range (ER) aircraft.

Last week, Air India had sent an aircraft to Milan to bring back over 230 Indian stranded there.

The airline has already suspended operations on Delhi-Rome and Delhi-Milan routes till March 28. IANS