Experience and Challenges for Establishing Quarantine Facility for Suspected COVID-19 Cases: Field Briefing

Due to unprecedented SARS-CoV2 pandemic, in late January 2020, many countries in the world imposed travel ban. The governments across the world initiated repatriation operations for stranded nationals. It was important to instantly develop quarantine facilities for evacuees. As the disease was fairly new, data on it was sparse to fulfil the requirement. With this article, we are sharing our experience of establishing and managing India’s first quarantine facility for repatriate nationals focusing on key parameters including infection prevention & control, environmental cleaning and bio-medical waste management along with basic living requirements. The facility housed a total of 617 evacuees from China and Italy out of who 17 turned out positive on initial testing constituting 27.55% and one tested positive on the 14th day testing. Mindful of the level of exposure 25 contacts were traced and were prescribed additional quarantine period of fourteen days in the facility and discharged accordingly. All evacuees were put on community surveillance under State Surveillance Units by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme. Supply of logistics, manpower management and ensuring compliance to protocols were some of the major challenges faced. Appropriate actions were designed and taken to address them. In conclusion, impeccable collaboration and coordination between different stakeholders is most essential ingredient for successful operation of any quarantine facility in the context of current pandemic.