Harsh Vardhan advised to strengthen the intensive care system, ventilators and testing laboratories in Maharashtra.
New Delhi:
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan suggested Thursday to conduct COVID-19 vulnerability mapping of densely populated areas in several districts of Maharashtra to deploy effective containment strategies as the state continues to report maximum death and infection.
Mr. Vardhan held a high-level meeting by videoconference with the Minister of Health of Maharashtra, Rajesh Tope, the Minister of Medical Education Amit Deshmukh and the district magistrates of the COVID-19 affected districts in the state.
All 36 districts are affected by the state which reported 3,438 deaths and 94,041 cases until Thursday 8 am.
The director of the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), SK Singh, made a presentation on the state of the COVID-19 epidemic in Maharashtra, highlighting the districts with the highest number of cases assets, case fatality rate, confirmation rate, doubling time and low screening rate.
He also presented the availability of health infrastructure and named the districts that require attention in the context of high confirmation and death rates, the health ministry said in a statement.
“The increase in the number of containment areas requires immediate attention. A vulnerability mapping of densely populated areas must be carried out for an effective containment strategy to be put in place. In addition, an increase in the mortality rate must be examined as well as tests performed per million inhabitants, “Mr. Vardhan was reportedly quoted in the statement.
Mr. Vardhan advised to strengthen the intensive care system, ventilators and test laboratories in Maharashtra and to ensure their availability to all future patients.
Regarding human resource management, he said the quality of health care should be improved with quality training for health workers through online training modules.
He also told state officials that test labs should ensure prompt delivery of COVID-19 test reports to assist in timely detection and management of patients.
“We have increased our testing capacity thanks to a network of 602 government laboratories and 235 private laboratories (837 laboratories in total). We have cumulatively tested 52,113,140 samples to date and 1.51.808 samples have been tested during in the past 24 hours, “he said. said.
He also stated that to date, more than 136 N95 lakh masks and more than 106 lakh PPE have been distributed to States, Union territories and central institutions. In non-COVID hospitals, the rational use of PPE must be ensured in accordance with guidelines issued by the Union’s Ministry of Health, said Mr. Vardhan.
The Minister also stressed the need to strengthen human resources for contact tracing, improving logistics such as intensive care beds with ventilators, beds with facilities available for oxygen supplementation, etc. and strengthening communication activities for behavior change to reduce community resistance and counseling of high-risk contacts, according to the statement.
In addition, it was important for the districts to ensure strict implementation of containment plans as well as an epidemiological investigation of cases for a full contact tracing and strict quarantine of people from the main affected areas.
The State was also advised to focus on essential RMNCHA + N services (Reproduction, Kindergarten, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health Plus Nutrition) with special attention to pregnant women as well as services such as collecting / blood transfusion, chemotherapy, dialysis.
“The state must ensure that essential services for the diagnosis and management of tuberculosis do not suffer because these patients are very prone to COVID-19 infection,” he said, stressing that strict action should be taken to ensure the ban on spitting in public places to be checked. spread of infection.
