- Home
- Live Blog
- Breaking News
- Top Headlines
- Cities
- NE News
- Sentinel Media
- Sports
- Education
- Jobs
Image for representation
Guwahati: Kamrup (Metro) in Assam has been named as one of the 13 districts in 8 states/Union Territories accounting for 14% of the Covid-19 deaths in the country, the Central Government said on Saturday (August 8).
The Central Government on Saturday directed the states to focus all efforts on reducing the Covid-19 mortality rate. It further urged the states reporting high Covid-19 deaths to optimize the utilization of resources to improve clinical management.
"As part of the continuous process of review and handholding of States/UTs for collaborative management of COVID-19, two high-level virtual meetings were chaired by Rajesh Bhushan, Health Secretary on 7th and 8th August to engage with the States reporting with the high caseload and higher CFR than the national average, in order to advise and support them on efforts to prevent and reduce mortality due to COVID-19," Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.
According to the Centre, today's today's meeting focused on 13 districts concentrated in eight States/UTs. These are Kamrup Metro in Assam; Patna in Bihar; Ranchi in Jharkhand; Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala; Ganjam in Odisha; Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; 24 Paraganas North, Hooghly, Howrah, Kolkata and Maldah in West Bengal; and Delhi.
According to the Government's figures, these coronavirus prone districts account for nearly 9% of India's active cases and about 14% of COVID deaths. At the same time, these districts have reported low tests per 10 lakh and a high confirmation percentage, the Centre added.
It was also observed that a surge in coronaviruscases has been observed in the daily new cases in four districts, namely Kamrup Metro in Assam; Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha in Kerala.
Principal Secretary (Health) and MD (NHM) from the eight States where the districts are located along with district surveillance officers, district collectors, commissioners of the municipal corporation, Chief Medical Officers, and Medical Superintendent of Medical Colleges participated in the meeting.
"Coordinated, graded, and pro-active management of Covid-19 by the Union and State/UT governments has ensured the national Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is on the slide. It currently stands at 2.04%," the ministry further added.
During the virtual meeting, the States were advised to address the issues of low lab utilization i.e. less than 100 tests per day for RT-PCR and 10 for others; low tests per million population; decrease in absolute tests from last week; delay in test results; and high confirmation percentage among the health care workers.
They were advised to ensure timely referral and hospitalization in view of reports from some districts of patients dying within 48 hrs of admission. States were directed to ensure the unavailability of ambulances with zero tolerance for refusal.
The need to ensure monitoring asymptomatic cases under home isolation with special focus on physical visits/phone consultations on a daily basis was underscored. States were asked to ensure a timely assessment and make advance preparedness for infrastructure viz. ICU beds, oxygen supply, etc., based on the prevailing caseload and the estimated growth rate.
The 8 States were advised to follow all Ministry protocols for effective management of containment and buffer zones along with "seamless patient and clinical management of patients with special focus on critical cases."
Emphasis has also been laid on strict surveillance among high-risk populations like people with co-morbidities, pregnant women, the elderly, and children.
With India registering 61,537 more cases, the coronavirus tally reached 20,88,611 on Saturday, while 14,27,005 people have so far recuperated from COVID-19 pushing the recovery rate to 68.32 percent, the Union health ministry said. The death toll due to the disease rose to 42,518 with 933 fresh fatalities being reported in a day.