Man showing signs of coronavirus escorted from plane at Dublin Airport
A man was escorted off a flight at Dublin Airport last night after showing signs of coronavirus.
Passengers on board a flight from Moscow say they were kept on the plane for two hours whilst medics in hazmat suits took the man off the aircraft.
HSE spokeswomen, while not confirming any details relating to the incident, said they have a "protocol in place" to activate any plan at ports of entry into Ireland.
Leaflets from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HSPC) were given to passengers on the flight which landed just after 9pm last night.
Images of the leaflet, which advised passengers that they had “been on a flight with a possible case of novel coronavirus”, were shared on social media.
The leaflet, dated February 1, told passengers to “please avoid contact with other people as much as possible tonight”.
Passengers were also told that if they become ill “especially with cough, sore throat, breathlessness of high temperature”, they should stay at home or in their hotel room and phone a doctor or 999.
“A public health doctor will contact you tomorrow”.
The National Public Health Emergency Team said this morning that it has advanced plans in place to get ready to deal with public emergencies such as this.
These plans are similar to those implemented during previous incidents such as pandemic influenza, SARS and MERS.
It says the aim of these plans at this point is one of containment.
This seeks to maximise the chance of a case being detected should one arise here, and to prevent it being transmitted to another person.
Meanwhile, three Irish people remain in quarantine in England after more than 80 people were brought to the UK from the affected city of Wuhan.
The number of people who have died from the virus has now risen to over 300, while there are almost 14,400 confirmed cases in China.
A man died from the coronavirus in the Philippines in what is the first reported death from the illness outside of China, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
