By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 1 May: Briefing the media at a press conference held at the Secretariat here, today, Secretary, Health, Amit Negi claimed that the Corona situation in the state was improving and, for the first time, the number of recoveries from the infection was more than the total number of fresh Covid cases detected in the state in the past 24 hours. He said that the state administration would strive to maintain the situation and even improve upon it. He revealed that a new system, the Decentralised Covid Care System, was being implemented by the state government, which would be applicable in urban as well as rural and remote areas. This would be adopted in various stages and, under this system, Covid Care Centres would be set up in every development block of the state. There would also be a control room at the block level, for which adequate manpower would be arranged. At the same time, it would be the endeavour to have mobile testing labs in the rural areas, which would go from village to village and collect test samples of the people suspected of having Covid symptoms.
Negi said that 4496 cases were reported in Uttarakhand, yesterday, while the number of recoveries stood at 5034. He said that, in the last one month, a total of 2600 oxygen beds, 678 ICU beds and 192 ventilators had been added in the state, and claimed that the health infrastructure had significantly been increased since April last year. While there were 673 oxygen support beds in March 2020, the number of oxygen supported beds had increased to 6000, now. In April, last year, the total number of ICU beds was 216 and had now been increased to 1495. Last year, the total number of ventilator beds was just 116 and now there were 983 ventilator supported beds in the state. The number of oxygen cylinders was 1193, last year, and now there were more than 10000 cylinders. He claimed that oxygen allocation and logistics management was also better in the state. Of the trains that came from Jamshedpur and Durgapur, 80 metric tons of oxygen was received from the first train and 100 metric tons of oxygen from the second train and that another train was arriving today with 80 metric tons of oxygen. All this oxygen was being supplied to hospitals of all the districts and reserves were also being created.
Secretary Pankaj Kumar Pandey said that some more people had been added to the expert committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Vice Chancellor of the Medical University. Under this, Prof Baronia, Critical Care Specialist of Pithoragarh Medical College, representatives of Government Medical Colleges, Head of Community Medicine of Doon Medical College had also been included and another committee had also been formed, titled Public Health Advisory Committee. The State Surveillance Officer was also part of the new committee. The focus was on prevention.
The ‘Black Fungus’ was being diagnosed in patients and it was necessary to take precautions. The state government was also ready to deal with the challenge. He said that people who suffered from other serious illnesses and uncontrolled diabetes, weakened immunity due to excessive use of steroids, or patients staying in ICUs for long periods of time were susceptible to fungal infections. Awareness and early detection of the disease could help prevention of the spread of fungal infection. Necessary medicines for black fungus were being administered.
He disclosed that 25 oxygen supported and ICU beds would be reserved for children in 500-bed hospitals being constructed in Haldwani and Rishikesh. Regarding vaccination, he said that that the state had enough vaccines and the vaccinations of 18 year plus and 45 year plus categories were being carried out continuously. There was also a lot of enthusiasm among the people towards getting the vaccine.
IG Amit Sinha said that, so far, 178 teams had raided 1839 places, regarding which 27 FIRs had been lodged and 38 people arrested. Also 204 seizures had been made. Action had been taken against 1.19 lakh persons for not wearing masks and 2.93 lakh persons for violation of Covid restrictions.
