Followingthe outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus in China, Special Secretary in the UnionHealth Ministry, Sanjeeva Kumar, chaired the meeting with the representativesof State governments and UTs through video conferencing on Wednesday.

TheHealth Ministry has issued a travel advisory asking people to avoid allnon-essential travel to China. It has also advised all travelers from China tomonitor their health closely.

Also,the Ministry of External Affairs has made a formal request to the ChineseGovernment for facilitating the evacuation of Indian Nationals from Wuhan inthe Hubei province of China in light of the recent outbreak of NovelCoronavirus.

Meanwhile,a 24×7 Call Centre is active for responding to queries on the virus. The numberis 011-23978046.

Itmay be mentioned here that the Coronavirus has so far claimed 106 lives inChina, while 4,500 people have been reported to be infected with the NovelCoronavirus globally.