The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday advised against holding of mega sports events like IPL because of the growing threat of COVID-19 .
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Addressing the weekly MEA press briefing, Additional Secretary Dammu Ravi said the viral outbreak was a serious threat and Indians abroad would be tested before they were brought back from the affected countries like Italy and Iran.
“We are also analysing a lot of requests of this nature like mega sports events that are being planned in India. I think it is for the organisers to decide as to whether they want to go ahead with it or not. We will be open to the idea if they really want to do it. Our advice will be not to do it at this time but if they still want to do it, it’s their decision,” said Mr. Ravi who has been appointed as the nodal officer to coordinate India’s international efforts in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Elaborating on the evacuation efforts he said: “We need to understand that evacuation doesn’t mean that we are going to bring everybody. People who are not contaminated will be first brought in. That’s the process. The medical team will go to Italy. First there will be sample testing and those who are negative cases will be brought in. In Iran there is already a medical team stationed and the samples are coming in and these are being tested. That’s a situation we are evolving on a daily basis,” said Mr Ravi. The statement came a day after India suspended all visas except diplomatic, UN and project-related visas to deal with the threat of coronavirus which has so far affected 114 countries with Iran, Italy and China among the worst hit.
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Apart from the evacuation plans, Mr Ravi referred to the factors that will determine whether individuals living in the worst hit countries can travel to India for personal reasons explaining the situation in Europe is “alarming” and advised Indians there to “stay put” and travel only for “compelling reasons”. He said that individuals willing to travel to India will be evaluated by mission heads and other diplomatic officials if they want to visit India for some urgent work and mentioned, “health reasons”, “weddings” that could possibly qualify as “compelling reasons”.
He assured that those willing for evacuation to India will be tested first by Indian medical teams in Iran and Italy where the diplomatic teams are assisting them. Indian ambassador to Iran Dhamu Gaddam said on Twitter on Thursday, that boxes bearing hundreds of swab samples are being readied by embassy personnel for transfer to India.
India also declared that it is considering requests from Iran Bhutan, Maldives and Italy for medical supplies and items to deal with emerging health requirements related to the coronavirus. “Some of the countries are quite affected in India’s neighbourhood. We sent a consignment in February to China which brought back our nationals in the return flight. We are at this moment processing such requests from Bhutan, Maldives, Iran, Italy. We can only spare items that we have at this point in time and accordingly based on the availability of such items, packages are being put together,” said Raveesh Kumar, Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs.
