The Union Territory’s COVID-19 case fatality rate, which has been on a steady climb, crossed 2% for the first time on Thursday as the administration warned of prosecuting patients and kin who delay seeking treatment at a designated hospital.
With the capital reporting 10 deaths and Karaikal three in the last 24 hours, raising the cumulative toll to 431, the UT’s CFR of 2.01% is well above national average of 1.64.
Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao said Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy had held a review of the COVID-19 mortalities with him, especially on the fatalities of patients below 60 years of age in Puducherry, where it emerged that a majority of the deaths occurred due to the delay in reporting to a COVID-designated hospital.
“Health teams have been undertaking household visits to screen for symptoms and in several cases it appears that patients had not heeded advice to go to hospital. As a result, many patients are reaching hospital in an advanced state of coronavirus infection and failing to survive,” Mr. Rao said.
Meanwhile, in a briefing with Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi, A. Anbarasu, Relief & Rehabilitation Commissioner and T. Arun, Health Secretary, said orders would be issued under Section 188 of IPC/144 of Cr.PC for the patients to report immediately after they develop symptoms. Violators will be prosecuted under law and responsibility fixed on the family members.
The protocol for clinical interventions to reduce the death rate, based on ICMR recommendation will be put in place, the officials said.
A PHC monitoring report is being devised in consultation with ICMR team which would rank PHCs based on the number of samples collected, contact tracing, surveillance, visits made by Medical Officers, ASHA and ANM volunteers and various other parameters.
According to Ms. Bedi, the file relating to imposition of penalty for violation of home quarantine/home isolation that was received after a protracted gap of four months has been approved. Wide publicity will be given for the Home Quarantine/Home Isolation persons to be made aware of the penal provisions.
In coordination with police, the Resident Welfare Associations will be co-opted for surveillance by ANMs/Asha workers. Besides, in order to document the surveillance of health workers, they will be carrying duplicate copy of pre-printed slips. After conducting the surveillance, one copy will be given to the family and other copy retained for documentation.
The ASHA/ANM workers will necessarily carry oximeter/thermal scanner for identifying symptomatic patients. To minimise the time taken for a patient to get admitted for treatment, a concrete action plan is being prepared for conveying test results, rationalizing ambulance timings to commute patients to screening centre and to hospitals for treatment.
On Thursday, the UT logged 323 new cases from testing 4,867 samples reflecting a case detection rate of 6.63%. The tally is 431 deaths, 4,744 active cases, a cumulative total of 21,248 cases and 16,253 patients discharged.