Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday appreciated the dedication of all the north-eastern states in combating coronavirus COVID-19 adding that all should work together by converting the orange zones to green zones and maintain the protective status across the states.
Vardhan held a high-level meeting with Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim to review the status of COVID-19 in the north-eastern states along with the measures being taken for its containment and management.
He said, “It is a huge relief and very encouraging to see green zones in most northeastern States. As of date, only Assam and Tripura have active COVID-19 cases; the other states are all in the green zone. Let us focus and work together by converting the orange zones to green zones and maintain the protective status across the States."
The review meeting, over video conferencing, was also attended by Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choube, along with Mizoram Health Minister Dr R Lalthangliana, Arunachal Pradesh Health Minister Alo Libang, Assam Health Minister Piyush Hazarika, and other senior officers from the eight states.
During the detailed interaction with the northeastern states, they highlighted various issues related to testing facilities, health infrastructure, surveillance, contact tracing etc., and also shared their best practices.
To maintain the positive status of COVID-19 management in the North East, Vardhan advised the states to ensure that the returning migrant labourers, students and those returning from abroad should be screened and quarantined as per the guidelines and protocol laid down by the by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of External Affairs. He also stated that the guidelines for discharging patients is also revised and needs to be followed by all the States.
For the states that have international borders, Vardhan stated that these states need to take adequate measures at the border areas to prevent exposure by conducting a screening of all individual entering the state at entry points and following quarantine protocol as per the guidelines.
The states were reminded that in addition to the COVID-19 care, non-COVID-19 health services were equally important and should not be neglected. Due attention was required to be paid to health care services such as ANCs for pregnant women, immunization drives, OPD/IPD services, screening of NCDs and TB diagnosis and treatment.
Adequate measures for prevention of vector-borne diseases also need to be taken, they were advised. Also, facilities of telemedicine and tele-counselling could be used for reaching to a larger population for their healthcare needs. States were also advised to ensure that payments, salaries and incentives were paid to the healthcare staff, paramedics and other healthcare workers, for which States were also advised to ensure that the NHM funds were transferred to the Health Department.
States were also informed that helpline number 104 in addition to 1075 can be used for grievance redressal for non-COVID essential services, and for providing the needed information to the people on their location etc. States were also advised to keep adequate stock of essential medicines and explore home delivery by engaging volunteers for the purpose.
In view of the larger prevalence of non-smoking tobacco usage in some of the states, Vardhan advised the states to ensure that concrete actions were taken for prohibiting their wide usage and for prohibiting spitting in public places which shall help in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Strong reforms are needed in this direction, he stated. He appreciated the effort of States that have banned the use of chewing tobacco and imposition of a fine for spitting in public places.
Vardhan stated that as on May 9, in the last 24 hours, 3,320 new confirmed cases have been added and 1307 patients were found cured. He added that the fatality rate is 3.3 per cent and the recovery rate is 29.9 per cent. He also added that (May 8) there are 2.41 per cent present active COVID-19 patients in ICU, 0.38 per cent on ventilators and 1.88 per cent on oxygen support.
He also said, “The testing capacity has increased in the country and it is 95,000 tests per day with 332 Government laboratories and 121 private laboratories. Cumulatively, 15,25,631 tests have been done so far for COVID-19.” Vardhan mentioned about the various measures taken by the Centre to combat COVID-19 so far.
