Tourism
not to get affected, claims Govt.
Sandesh Prabhudesai
17 April 2003
In spite of India's first SARS case being detected in Goa,
the government authorities here have been consistently denying
that it will affect the tourism scene.
"There is absolutely no threat since the virus has not
been passed on to anybody else from the victim in the last
18 days", claims chief minister Manohar Parrikar.
The SARS victim, found tested positive, however is a Goan,
who had gone abroad on tour. The tourist state however has
been concentrating more upon the foreign tourists coming down
to Goa.
It is a fact that the season is coming to the fag end, though
around 14 charter flights from UK, Russia and Germany are
yet to arrive, besides around 15,000 additional foreigners
reaching Goa, enroute metropolitan cities of the country.
"Not a single charter flight is cancelled", states
N Suryanarayan, the tourism director. He had a special meeting
with all the 11 local charter operators, making arrangement
for in-flight filling of forms and blood testing at the arrival
here.
Though the tourist state was initially conducting medical
screening only for the charter tourists and at the Mormugao
harbour for mariners from 8 April onwards, screening of other
domestic air travellers started much later.
"We are taking all the possible precautions, but it
is difficult to detect the virus-infected people at the air
port all the time since the symptoms become visible only after
seven days", points out Parrikar.
The tourism department however has also alerted all the hotels
and resorts to conduct SARS test if any tourist is found to
be having fever of other related SARS symptoms. "But
I do not want to create unnecessary panic", states Suryanarayan.
According to him, due to hot weather conditions, around 15
per cent foreigners fall sick in Goa, suffering with fever
etc, as a matter of routine. However, Dr Rajan Kunkolienkar,
the nodal officer of SARS ward at the Goa Medical College,
confirms that no patient - Goan or a tourist - has reported
till date, except the single Goan victim.
According to the chief minister, the issue is already dying
and his claim that the victim is not suffering with SARS would
be fully established in four days, once the second report
of the victim's blood, serum, throat swam and urine comes
from Delhi.
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