Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar has said that the percentage of recovery from COVID-19 has improved. Of the 6,516 confirmed cases in the State, 3,440 (with 52.8%) have recovered and discharged from hospitals, he said.
He was addressing a meeting of officials while reviewing preventive methods that have been initiated in the district on Saturday.
While appreciating the strict implementation of preventive methods by the State government, Dr. Sudhakar said that the percentage of deaths has reduced and percentage of recovery has remarkably improved when compared it with the national data. At the national level, the death rate was 2.8% while in the State it was just 1.2% with 79 deaths so far.
The Minister appealed to people not to panic about the pandemic and said that 2,531 patients against the active 2,995 patients had no sign of symptoms of the virus. Using preventive methods will prevent the spread of COVID-19.
He directed the officials of the Health Department and district administration to take up awareness programmes through the task force committee formed at the village level. The Minister specifically suggested the officials to take all possible actions to provide effective and proper medical aid to patients as Deodurg taluk has registered the highest number of 306 positive cases and two deaths.
“Persons who have tested positive should extend cooperation with the medical officers, doctors, nurses and other health workers to fight against deadly virus,” he said.
The State government has taken action to establish testing laboratories. Presently, 71 laboratories have been functioning in the State. Of them, 41 are from the government while remaining 30 are under private hospitals. “In Raichur, the RIMS has been conducting tests for 180 samples but this capacity should be increased,” the Minister told officials.
Ramkrishna, District Health Officer, said throat samples have been collected from suspected persons. As many as 15 fever clinics, four taluk hospitals, six community health centres, three medical colleges, 10 mobile vehicles are being used for the purpose, he said.
Mr. Ramkrishna said that to provide immediate treatment to the positive patients, 250 beds at OPEC, 150 beds each at RIMS and Navodaya Medical college hospital have been set up.