Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday chaired a high-level virtual meeting with 11 states reporting very high rise in daily covid-19 cases and daily deaths in the last two weeks.
These States together contributed 54% of the total cases and 65% of the total deaths in the country, with a disproportionately high number of deaths in Maharashtra and Punjab. A high positivity rate is seen in Maharashtra (25%) and Chhattisgarh (14%). As the country is grappling with the second wave of covid-19 pandemic increasing concern of the government, Harsh Vardhan reviewed the situation of covid-19 and progress of vaccination in States/UTs including Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan.
Premium Health Ministers of States/UTs including T. S. Singh Deo (Chhattisgarh), Satyendar Jain (Delhi), Anil Vij (Haryana), Rajiv Saizal (Himachal Pradesh), Banna Gupta (Jharkhand), Dr. K. Sudhakar (Karnataka), Dr. Prabhuram Choudhary (Madhya Pradesh), Rajesh Tope (Maharashtra), Balbir Singh Sidhu (Punjab), Dr Raghu Sharma (Rajasthan) and Additional Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries (Health) of the 11 States/UTs virtually attended the meeting.
“Since February 2021, these 11 States have witnessed a steep increase in cases, majority of which have been reported in the younger population of 15-44 years. Majority of the deaths have been reported among the elderly of age more than 60 years," said Harsh Vardhan.
The health minister cautioned that there is a high rapid antigen tests (RAT) proportion in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra which should ideally by RTPCR, the golden standard of covid-19 testing. The union health minister said that the testing capacity of the private sector is underutilized in these States. While the cases were on the rise since the past few weeks, the national cumulative fatality rate (CFR) has become 1.30% now. India’s vaccination coverage has crossed 8.31 crore doses with single largest vaccination in the last 24 hours of more than 43 lakh doses administered. The total number of tests has also surpassed 25 crores on Tuesday.
“From one lab at NIV, Pune, we now have 2,443 diagnostic labs across the country. Our testing capacity has escalated to 13,00,000 per day," said Harsh Vardhan. The health minister said that under Vaccine Maitri, India’s global community program, India has exported over 6.45 Crore doses of covid-19 Vaccine to 84 Countries. “3.58 Crore doses have been supplied to 25 countries under commercial contracts, and 1.05 Crore to 43 countries as grants," said Harsh Vardhan.
The union health minister urged the States to take up mass awareness campaigns to re-instil the importance of covid-19 prevention measures in the masses. “The measures to prevent and contain covid-19 are not rocket science. We have successfully adopted these measures all of last year and the same measures have to be reinforced and implemented with more rigour and commitment by the States and the people," said the health minister.
In order to curb the resurgence of the pandemic, Harsh Vardhan advised the States to strengthen their public and private healthcare resources. The limiting of social/public gatherings, implementation of “Test, Track, Treat" strategy with 70% RT-PCR ratio, quarantine of positive cases, contact tracing of at least 25 to 30 contacts per positive person were also stressed upon.
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Premium Premium Harsh Vardhan pointed out that there is a need to enhance the pace of covid-19 vaccination. “Centre will continually replenish the vaccine stock. States should vaccinate the prioritized groups in a mission made. There is no vaccine shortage in any part of the country. The Centre is providing the required quantities to all States and UTs," said Harsh Vardhan.
India’s total tally covid-19 cases has touched 127,32,968 and the toll has climbed to 1,65,851 as on Tuesday. India as on Tuesday administered more than 8.40 crores covid-19 vaccine doses. 5.62 lakh vaccine doses given till 8 pm today.
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