Since early Thursday, nearly 10,000-12,000 passengers from different international ave been screened for signs and symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 , better known as novel coronavirus.
According to officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI), they received directions to screen all passengers. “There are about 50 international movements on a daily basis. We have been screening all passengers in a systematic way,” an official said.
Officials said, the screening of passengers from the 12 countries including China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Nepal and Indonesia and the those arriving from other remaining countries are done separately in two different parts of the terminal.
“The passengers from the 12 countries are checked as soon as they step out of the aircraft and reach the aero bridge. Whereas, those arriving from other countries are screened just before they reach the immigration area. All passengers have to fill up the self declaration form indicating if they have any illness,” another official said.
Sources said, owing to this, the amount of time passengers have to wait to clear immigration may take longer than usual. “We have been monitoring the situation everyday and we are trying to do everything possible to ensure the process gets done smoothly and is not very time consuming,” sources said.
They added that there is likely to be a dip in the number of people who have travelled from Chennai airport in the last two months and also in the number of aircraft movements as well. “We are estimating the numbers and should know the exact figure in the next few days,” he said.
