Assam capable of treating 5,000 patients at a time, claims Himanta Biswa Sarma

* Total coronavirus cases: 392

* No reason to panic: Himanta

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Health & Family Welfare Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has claimed that the State is capable of treating 5,000 COVID-19 positive patients. On the other hand, the number of such patients went up to 392 with 46 new cases reported on Sunday night. Of these, active cases are 328; recovered: 57; deaths: 4 and migrated 3.

Earlier, addressing a press conference at NHM office here, Minister Sarma said that even though the State has witnessed a dramatic spike of COVID positive cases in the last seven days, there is no need to panic as 99 per cent of the patients are in quarantine. He added that 2,000 doctors, nurses and other paramedical staffs are ready to treat the patients.

"Moreover, the Health department has started an exercise to involve more doctors in the fight against COVID. About 210 doctors have expressed their willingness to join the fight. We are ready with adequate treatment facilities and these will open up one by one. A new treatment facility will be opened once the existing ones get filled up," said Sarma.

He further said that there has been a spike in the number of COVID positive cases in the State due to large-scale inflow of people from outside the State. Nearly 60,000 people have so far come to the State by various vehicles and trains. "But due to strict quarantine, there has been no community spreading in the State despite the sharp rise in the number of positive cases," he said.

The Minister added that the community surveillance conducted in 25,000 villages has found 23,000 persons with fever and 6,000 persons with influenza like symptoms. But these persons are not COVID positive. He pointed out that of the total COVID positive cases in Assam, while 39 are related with Tablighi Jamat, six to seven cases do not have any travel history and 271 have travel history. Of those who came from outside and tested positive in Assam, 108 were from Mumbai, 34 from Delhi, 32 from West Bengal, 11 each from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, 21 from Chennai, 30 from Tamil Nadu, six from Bihar, four each from Pune, Karnataka and Agartala, one each from Andhra Pradesh,Madhya Pradesh & Saudi Arabia, 3 from Hyderabad, 1 from Jharkhand and 2 from Teleangana.

Sarma also claimed that the State has impressively increased the number of tests to confirm COVID-19. He said that the medical colleges and Regional Medical Research Centre at Lahowal in Dibrugarh have so far conducted 59,553 swab tests.

"We are conducting 2,500 tests daily. The number is expected to increase up to 5,000 soon. I thank each and everyone at the microbiology departments in the various medical colleges who are doing excellent jobs in terms of testing," Sarma said.