Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque today said the government has so far scanned over 90,000 passengers, who travelled to Bangladesh from abroad, aiming to prevent coronavirus infection that emerged in the central city of Wuhan in China, reports BSS.
“Since January 1, 2020, the Health Service Division under the ministry has completed medical scanning of 90,245 passengers to prevent coronavirus,” he told a meeting at the Secretariat in the capital on Monday. The Health and Family Welfare Ministry arranged the meeting on health awareness at its conference room, said a press release of the ministry.
Maleque said a total of 12,630 passengers were scanned across the country in the last 24 hours. Of those, he said, 6,162 passengers were scanned in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet airports, while 6,224 people in seaports and 240 passengers in river ports.
Chaired by Health Education Division secretary Md Ali Noor, the meeting was attended, among others, by additional secretary of the Health Service Division Md Habibur Rahman Khan and director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr Abul Kalam Azad.
On February 7, the Health Service Division made medical scanning mandatory for the arriving passengers from different countries. But no coronavirus- infected person is yet to be detected.