Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy on Sunday said that the Centre had provided two lakh N-95 masks and over one lakh Personal Protection Kits (PPEs) to Telangana to combat COVID-19 and cautioned the public to continue to exercise the spirit of lockdown and pay full attention to their health in view of the rising cases daily.
Participating in the launch of the indigenous, cost effective, wireless physiological parameter or ‘COVID BEEP’ - Continuous Oxygenation and Vital Information Device Biomed, designed by ESIC Medical College in association with the ECIL for monitoring the coronavirus patients, he said several steps in coordination with the State government have been taken to deal with this situation. About 964 Covid special hospitals and 759 labs are working across the country, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took ‘quick’ decisions to tackle this pandemic head on like timely implementation of nationwide lockdown even before the virus showed its prevalence and had saved countless lives. The government announced ₹1.7 lakh crore relief package under the ‘PM Garib Kalyan Yojana’ and also brought the PPEs and face masks under the Essential Commodities Act to prevent black marketing. The country has reached a capacity of manufacturing over 4.5 lakh PPEs a day, he said.
‘COVID BEEP’ can check parameters of patients like body temperature, blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, respiratory rate, electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood pressure along with patient location on a mobile phone, laptop/desktop computer for monitoring by doctor from any place for rendering timely treatment, he noted and appreciated the ESIC College for the initiative.
“We are fully geared up to ramp up medical infrastructure. We cannot afford to put the lives of our doctors and medical practitioners at risk and devices like these and the new ‘Bio-Sensor lab’ will be a common platform for doctors and scientists to work together in mixing cutting-edge technology and medicine,” he said.
A novel procedure called LAMP (Loop Amplification Test) to diagnose COVID-19 in a simple time saving method designed by Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) was also inaugurated on the occasion.
Earlier Union Minister of Atomic Energy Jitendra Singh inaugurated the ‘COVID-BEEP’, ECIL Chairman & Managing Director Sanjay Chaubey, ESIC Medical College Dean M. Srinivas and others participated in the meeting.