Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday asked 11 states reporting the highest surge in Covid-19 cases to create large containment zones for achieving community quarantine to reduce the aggressive rate of virus transmission.
At a review meeting, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were also asked to pay special focus on the prominent five-six cities facing the highest burden of cases and map medical colleges to either these cities or adjoining two-three districts.
India is currently reporting the sharpest growth rate of 7.6 per cent in new Covid cases, which is 1.3 times higher than the case growth rate of 5.5 per cent reported in June last year.This is leading to an alarming rise in the daily number of active cases, which currently stand at 16,79,000 while there is also a sharp growth of 10.2 per cent in the number of deaths.
Covid-19 patients wait in an ambulance outside a
hospital in Ahmedabad | PTI
All the 11 states have already crossed their highest reported daily case threshold with some districts like Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Nashik, Thane, Lucknow, Raipur, Ahmedabad and Aurangabad also following the same pattern, said Vardhan.
Amid reports of shortage of ventilators and medical oxygen, the Union minister assured a fresh supply of the lifesaving machines: 1,121 ventilators will be given to Maharashtra, 1,700 to UP, 1,500 to Jharkhand, 1,600 to Gujarat, 152 to MP and 230 to Chhattisgarh.
He also said there will be no shortage of vaccines, pointing out that the total consumption of vaccines so far, wastage included, has been approximately 12.57 crore against the 14.15 crore doses provided by the Centre.
About 1. 58 crore doses are still available with the states, while another 1. 16 lakh more doses are in the pipeline, to be delivered by next week.
CONCLUSION
The issues of augmenting the supply of oxygen cylinders, stepping up the supply of drug Remdesivir in hospitals, adding to the ventilator stock and enhanced supply of vaccine doses were raised by almost all states.
The Delhi government requested additional beds in central government hospitals as was done in 2020 to help tide over the emergent health crisis.
