Foreign minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said India will do whatever it must to stop the spread of the coronavirus infections in the country. The deadly virus has so far affected 73 people in India.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Jaishankar said that a medical team of six had been deputed to Iran, the third most affected country in theworld.

“We will do whatever we must to ensure that the coronavirus spread (in India) is restricted," Jaishankar said adding that there is a very detailed tracking procedure in place to ensure that people with a history of travel to COVID-19 outbreak hotspots and those who have been detected with infections are isolated and quarantined.There are 6,000 Indians stranded in the Persian Gulf Iran and this group includes 1,100 pilgrims from Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir, the minister said. The initial focus of his ministry was to bring back pilgrims, mostly stranded in COVID-19-hit Qom region in Iran, hesaid.

Fifty eight people have come back from Iran and another 200 are expected to come back soon," he said.

"We cannot bring back untested people because I have the security of this country to worry about," he said.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared it a pandemic.

The virus has so far affected 126,258 people across the world with 68,284 recoveries. China, the country of origin for the outbreak, hasso far seen 3,056 deaths, followed by 827 in Italy and 354 in Iran.

Wednesday, the Indian government banned till 15 April all foreigners and those holding cards of overseas citizenship of India from entering India. Only those coming in for diplomatic or employment purposes orthose on project visas will be allowed to enter.