By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 10 May: Chief Secretary Om Prakash, along with some other senior officers, today, briefed the media on the Covid situation in Uttarakhand. Om Prakash said that mobile testing vans would soon be moved to remote villages of the state to conduct RTPCR tests wherever any symptoms of the pandemic are detected. He said that the state required 165.18 MT of oxygen for the Oxygen and ICU beds. The Government of India had allocated 183 MT to Uttarakhand. The beds currently in use required 130 metric tons of oxygen and the state was getting 126 metric tons of oxygen per day. Five metric tons of oxygen was being made available from the plants installed in the hospitals. More plants are now coming up in hospitals, from which an additional 4 metric tons of oxygen would be available.
In response to a question, Om Prakash said that mobile testing vehicles would soon visit various villages from where reports of Covid infection would be received. He also appealed to the people not to take the disease lightly and seek treatment as soon as symptoms started appearing. Early care could help reduce the number of deaths. He also disclosed that a committee had been constituted to monitor people who did not need ICUs but were still using them. This committee would inspect the hospitals and monitor the situation.
Regarding the vaccine, he said the state needed 1 lakh vaccinations per day which was its capacity to vaccinate at present. However, there was countrywide shortage of the vaccines. The state government had sought permission of the Government of India to directly import the vaccines from abroad.
Secretary, Health, Amit Negi said there were 673 oxygen supported beds in the state in March 2020, which had now gone up to over 5500. Similarly, in the state, there were 216 ICUs in March 2020 which now stood at 1390. The ventilators had increased from 116 in March 2020 to 876 now, Oxygen cylinders had increased from 1193 in March 2020 to 9900 at present, Oxygen concentrators in March 2020 were 275 and now 1293. While there was only one testing lab in March 2020, there were currently 10 government labs and 26 private labs. He added that health facilities were being upgraded continuously by the state government in one year and would continue to be upgraded. He said that the hospitals have been instructed to constantly update the status of availability of oxygen beds. The contact number of all the PROs written on the website of the hospitals also is to be updated so that the public do not have problems. A task force had also been set up including the DMs, police and medical experts to take further action on all complaints.
They reported that Remdesivir would be used only according to clinical protocol. Every day, 25 to 30 thousand people were being tested and this would be increased.
Pankaj Pandey disclosed that the Government of India had fixed the price of Remdesivir and it was being procured and given to hospitals and the hospitals had also been directed to make available the injections to patients at the same price. Senior IPS officer Amit Sinha said that, since the campaign started, so far 22 FIRs had been registered on black marketing of drugs and 33 accused, while 194 recoveries had been made so far.