India cancels all flight operations from Iran amid Coronavirus threat

New Delhi: Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended all flight operations of Mahan Air and Iran Air to India in view of the recent coronavirus outbreak. Notably, these two Iranian airlines operate several weekly flights to Indian cities of Mumbai and New Delhi.

Iran has reported the most fatalities from novel coronavirus outside of China. Iran has reported as many as 245 cases of coronavirus, while 26 people have died of the infection since the beginning of the outbreak.

India has already banned flight services to China. Several airline firms like IndiGo and Air India have suspended their flight operations to China and Hong Kong, while SpiceJet have cancelled its operations to Hong Kong.

Vistara too has canceled some flights to Bangkok and Singapore due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

On Thursday, Pakistan announced the suspension of flight operations to and from Iran, effective from midnight of February 27, after 2 cases of coronavirus were reported in the country, involving people who had recently returned from Iran.

Coronavirus, which first originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has since then killed more than 2700 people in that country alone, while more than 80,000 people in nearly 50 countries have been infected.

Citing figures issued by the South China Morning Post, an IANS reprort said that as of Friday morning, the number of confirmed cases outside China were reported in South Korea (2,022), Japan (894, including 705 on Diamond Princess), Italy (650), Iran (245), Singapore (96), Hong Kong (93), the US (60), Kuwait (43), Thailand (41), France (38), Bahrain (33), Taiwan (32), Australia (23), Malaysia (22), Germany (21), Vietnam (16), the UK (15), the UAE (13), Canada (12), Spain (12), Macau (10), Iraq (six), Switzerland (four), Israel (three), Croatia (three), India (three), the Philippines (three), Greece (three), Oman (two), Finland (two), Russia (two), Pakistan (two), Austria (two), Sweden (two), Estonia (one), Nigeria (one), Georgia (one), Algeria (one), Romania (one), Brazil (one), Afghanistan (one), North Macedonia (one), Denmark (one), Norway (one), Egypt (one), Lebanon (one), Cambodia (one), Nepal (one), Sri Lanka (one), Belgium (one), Lithuania (one), the Netherlands (one), and New Zealand (one).