Coronavirus: ITBP sets up 600-bedded quarantine facility in south Delhi

Border-guarding force ITBP has prepared a 600-bedded facility in Delhi to quarantine and provide basic medical care to those suspected to have been affected by the new coronavirus, a senior official said on Friday.

The facility is operational in an Indo-Tibetan Border Police camp in south-west Delhi's Chhawla area that houses ITBP sector headquarters, its spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey said.

A team of 25 doctors — 15 from Safdarjung hospital and 10 from ITBP — will be at the facility, which has about 600 beds and has been prepared in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, he said.

Special arrangements have been made to host children and women at the facility, an unoccupied residential unit for ITBP personnel, Pandey said.

The affected, including those being evacuated from China's Hubei Province on board a special Air India aircraft, will be brought to the facility after first-level screening at the airport, he said.

The building complex has operational kitchens and bathrooms apart from modern amenities like Wi-Fi.

The 90,000-personnel-strong force is primarily tasked to guard the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control with China under the command of the Union Home Ministry.

The Army has set up a similar facility in nearby Manesar.