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Business News/ News / India/  Centre asks states with high covid caseload to strengthen efforts to limit disease spread
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Centre asks states with high covid caseload to strengthen efforts to limit disease spread

A surge has been observed in the daily new cases in four districts viz. Kamrup Metro in Assam; Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha in Kerala

A mobile coronavirus testing centre in HyderabadPremium
A mobile coronavirus testing centre in Hyderabad

Centre has asked states with high case fatality rate and increasing caseload of covid-19 to strengthen efforts to limit the spread of the highly infectious disease ranging from low lab utilisation to ensuring ambulance availability.

Rajesh Bhushan, Health Secretary, convened two high level virtual meetings by on Friday and Saturday to engage with the States reporting with high case load and higher CFR than the national average, in order to advise and support them on efforts to prevent and reduce mortality due to covid-19.

The union health ministry on Saturday said that today’s meeting focused on 13 districts concentrated in eight States/UT—Kamrup Metro in Assam; Patna in Bihar; Ranchi in Jharkhand; Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala; Ganjam in Odisha; Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; 24 Paraganas North, Hooghly, Howrah, Kolkata and Maldah in West Bengal; and Delhi.

“These districts account for nearly 9% of India's active cases and about 14% of covid-19 deaths. They also report low tests per million and high confirmation percentage," the union health ministry said.

A surge has been observed in the daily new cases in four districts viz. Kamrup Metro in Assam; Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha in Kerala.

Several issues critical to reducing case fatality rate were discussed during the meeting.

“The States were advised to address the issues of low lab utilisation i.e. less than 100 tests per day for RT-PCR and 10 for others; low tests per million population; decrease in absolute tests from last week; delay in test results; and high confirmation percentage among the health care workers," said the union health ministry.

“They were advised to ensure timely referral and hospitalization in view of reports from some districts of patients dying within 48 hrs of admission," it said.

States were directed to ensure availability of ambulances with zero tolerance for refusal. The need to ensure monitoring asymptomatic cases under home isolation with special focus on physical visits/phone consultation on daily basis was underscored. States were asked to ensure a timely assessment and make advance preparedness for infrastructure viz. ICU beds, oxygen supply etc., based on the prevailing case load and the estimated growth rate.

AIIMS, New Delhi is holding virtual sessions twice very week on Tuesdays and Fridays where a specialist team of doctors provides guidance on effective clinical management of covid-19 patients in the ICUs of different State hospitals through tele/video consultation, to reduce the case fatality rate.

The State authorities were advised to ensure that State Centers of Excellence other hospitals participate in these VCs regularly to improve clinical practices. The States were advised to follow all Ministry protocols for effective management of containment and buffer zones along with seamless patient and clinical management of patients with special focus on critical cases, the government said.

Another major area highlighted was that of preventable deaths by strict surveillance among high-risk population like people with co-morbidities, pregnant women, the elderly and children.

While India as on Saturday recorded 21,15,138 covid-19 cases, there has been a sharp increase in covid-19 recoveries. With 48,900 patients discharged in the last 24 hours, India’s total recoveries from covid-19 has reached 14,27,005. The recovery rate, on a steady upward rise, stands at 68.32%.

The active cases, which are the actual case load for India at 6,19,088 today account for 29.64% of total positive cases. These are under medical supervision either at hospitals or in home isolation, the government said.

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Published: 08 Aug 2020, 09:06 PM IST
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