India is going to send a team of doctors to Italy on Thursday to bring back students who are stranded in the coronavirus hit the country. The action comes a day after Indian students in a video on social media, gave an SOS call to the Indian Embassy and the Government of India.

Janice Pariat, an Indian poet and writer, had earlier put out the SOS message on Facebook. In her post, she claimed that Indians are unable to procure the mandatory certificate in Italy and hence were unable to board the Alitalia flight to New Delhi.

The team of eight include four doctors, two microbiologists, and two public health specialists, all from the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). They will leave for Rome on Thursday night.

According to an India Today report, the team will collect swab samples of stranded Indian students for testing before they are brought back here, health ministry officials said on Wednesday. The students have been told to reach a designated venue from where their samples would be collected.

‘The issue arose because coronavirus is so strong in Italy, we wanted everybody boarding a flight to have a COVID-free certificate. It has been difficult to get that in the Italian system because it is busy treating patients in Italy. So we are hoping, by tomorrow, to fly in a medical team to Italy just as Iran, we will conduct a test on the students and try to put them on very early flights thereafter,’ the External Affairs Minister told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

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