From time to time, serious diseases associated with deadly viruses appear in different parts of the world. Over the past year, many countries have witnessed health crises due to spread of viruses. The most deadly and serious virus outbreaks included Ebola crisis in Congo, deadly measles outbreak in Samoa and in the US unknown disease killed several young people in the same year.
The confirmation of coronavirus cases in China have sparked fears and the news is dominating headlines across the globe, prompting countries to take precautionary measures to detect the emerging deadly diseases and protect people.
Despite continuous efforts of many countries, cases have already been detected in Australia, France, Japan and Malaysia and many other suspected cases were detected in Turkey and other countries.
Chinese health authorities said yesterday that the nationwide toll had jumped to 41 after 15 more people had died the day before in Wuhan, where the virus emerged. The number of confirmed infections in China also surged to 1,287, up from 830 reported on Friday.
The State of Qatar, represented by the Ministry of Public Health, has taken measures and procedures since the coronavirus cases were confirmed in China, in order to detect and examine all travellers coming from China at Hamad International Airport (HIA) which is one of the frontline to protect the country from such viruses.
The Ministry has approved the use of thermal examination at HIA for all travellers coming from China, while raising awareness among travellers about the symptoms of pneumonia, including high fever, cough and difficulty in breathing.
As part of the precautionary measures, about 2,000 travellers coming from China on board six flights were examined through three thermal inspection sites inside the airport on Friday. The authority confirmed that all the examined travellers in HIA were negative reaffirming the ministry’s earlier statement that the country is free of coronavirus and no positive case has been detected so far.
The Ministry has also set up inside the airport a medical clinic to deal with any case of suspected injury, along with installation of 10 thermal cameras under the supervision of doctors and nurses from the Ministry of Public Health and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
The precautionary measures taken by Qatar is part of its overall policies and comes in line with its sound and long sighted health strategy and action plans being implemented tirelessly to ensure highest level of health services and protect the nation from such epidemics.
