Govt appoints nodal person to coordinate efforts to deal with Covid-19 outbreak

India on Wednesday appointed a senior officer of the rank of additional secretary in the ministry of external affairs as the nodal person to coordinate efforts to deal with the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus that has claimed more than 4,000 lives worldwide.

This comes alongside India announcing a suspension of visas for nationals of all countries till 15 April.

The role of the foreign ministry official Dammu Ravi was not immediately clear but an official said that he would be coordinating with all nodal ministries in New Delhi and with Indian missions abroad to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. More than 90 countries have reported more than 119,000 infections since the outbreak was first detected in China’s Hubei province in December 2019.

The announcement of the appointment of a nodal officer in the Indian foreign ministry also came on a day the World Health Organisation said that the COVID -19 outbreak could be characterised as a pandemic.

India has so far evacuated almost 1,000 of its nationals from countries including the worst hit China, Japan and Iran. More than 60 people are infected with the virus in India.