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Mumbai airport on high alert

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI April 2. Mumbai's Sahar International Airport, which handles several thousand passengers from across the world, is now on a high alert to cope with possible cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases.

The airport authorities and the city's civic body have put in place an arrangement that they claim is foolproof. Screening has been made mandatory for all airport arrivals, especially from destinations in Asia that have been hit hard by the disease. The Mumbai Municipal Corporation has asked the cabin crew on all incoming flights to study the passengers for any tell-tale signs and alert Mumbai to be ready to deal with such cases immediately on arrival. Mumbai is a key disembarkation point and the large number of flights and passengers makes for chaotic conditions, which may well stretch the resources of the surveillance mechanism. There have been no problems with the health checks so far. The Kasturba Infectious Diseases Hospital and the V.N. Desai Hospital have segregated some wards for dealing with any possible case of SARS. At the airport itself, an isolation facility has been created and the staff, operating in four shifts, has been asked to be extra vigilant. They have been asked to be ``quite stringent'' in the screening procedures.

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