Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on June 11, 2020, held a high level meeting via Video Conferencing with Rajesh Tope, Health Minister of Maharashtra, Amit Deshmukh, Medical Education Minister, Maharashtra, and DMs of COVID-19 affected districts of Maharashtra, in the presence of Ashwini Kumar Choubey, MoS (HFW). Preeti Sudan, Secretary (HFW), Rajesh Bhushan, OSD (HFW), along with the senior officials from both Centre and the States were present at the meeting.
All 36 Districts in Maharashtra are Corona affected. At the outset, Dr S K Singh, Director, NCDC, made a presentation on COVID-19 status in Maharashtra highlighting the districts that were showing higher number of active cases, case fatality rate, confirmation rate, doubling time and low testing rate. He also presented the availability of the health infrastructure and districts that need attention against the backdrop of high confirmation rates and case fatality rates.
Speaking on the current scenario of COVID-19 in Maharashtra, Dr Vardhan said, “Increase in number of Containment Zones needs immediate attention. Vulnerability mapping of densely populated areas should be done for effective containment strategy to be put in place. Also, rise in Case Fatality rate should be looked into along with tests done per million population.”
Regarding the health infrastructure, Dr Vardhan advised strengthening the system of ICU, ventilators, and testing labs in Maharashtra and ensuring the availability of ICU and ventilators to all forthcoming patients. With respect to the human resource management, he said quality of health care should be improved with quality training to Healthcare Workers through online training modules.
He also told the State officials that the testing labs should ensure prompt delivery of reports of COVID-19 tests to help in timely detection and management of COVID-19 patients. He said, “We have ramped up our testing capacity through a network of 602 government labs and 235 private labs (total 837 labs). We have cumulatively tested 52,13,140 samples till date and 1,51,808 samples were tested in the last 24 hours.” He also stated that as on date, more than 136 lakh N95 masks and more than 106 lakh PPEs have been distributed to States/UTs and central institutions. In non-COVID hospitals, rational use of PPEs was to be ensured as per guidelines issued by the Ministry, Dr Vardhan pointed out.
Dr Vardhan highlighted the need for strengthening human resource for contact tracing; logistics enhancement like including ICU beds with ventilators, beds with facility available for oxygen supplementation etc; ensuring transport for healthcare workers; and strengthening Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) activities to reduce community resistance and counselling of high risk contacts, according to a PIB release.
The State was also advised to ensure focus on essential RMNCHA+N services with special care for pregnant women along with services like blood collection/transfusion, chemotherapy, dialysis. Dr Vardhan said, “The State must ensure that essential services for TB diagnosis and management do not suffer as these patients are very much prone to the COVID-19 infection. Active survey for TB cases should be done along with the house to house surveys being conducted for COVID-19.”