Alerted over the sudden rise in the COVID-19 cases, the State Government has decided to conduct fever survey across the State to ascertain the intensity of the cases and take remedial measures.
Teams of Health department accompanied by Municipal Administration personnel in urban areas and Panchayat Raj staff in rural areas will visit every doorstep to check whether the inmates have symptoms of COVID-19. They will carry testing kits as well as home isolation kits for distribution among those found with symptoms of the virus.
“The government has kept two crore testing kits and one crore home isolation kits ready. Though there is shortage of the kits in the market, their availability was ensured with the advanced planning by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao,” Health Minister T. Harish Rao said. Kits have been positioned at all levels right from major government hospitals to primary health care centres and ANM managed sub centres at the village level and those found with symptoms could make use of them for speedy recovery.
Mr. Harish Rao along with Panchayat Raj Minister E. Dayakar Rao, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and other senior officials conducted a detailed review of the situation across the State on Thursday. The review covered various aspects like preparedness of the hospitals, availability of medicine and equipment as well as beds in different hospitals. The Minister gave specific instructions to the district collectors to be prepared to tackle any eventuality as the government had already kept ready necessary infrastructure.
The Minister said the survey had been contemplated as people were not coming forward for testing in spite of showing symptoms of the virus. “Instead of asking people to come to the testing centres, we have decided to take the facility to their door step. This will also ensure that there is no scope for spread of the virus because of the gathering,” he said exhorting the elected representatives at different levels to actively take part in the survey and ensure total coverage of the population.
He said there were 27,000 beds equipped with oxygen supply in the 56,000 beds available across the State. As many as 76 government hospitals had oxygen generation plants at present. Availability of oxygen too had been significantly enhanced from around 120 metric tonne of the pre-Covid stage to over 340 metric tonne at present.
Steps had been initiated to enhance availability of oxygen further to 500 metric tonne in line with the instructions given by the Chief Minister. In addition, facilities like ventilators had been provided at district and mandal levels to ensure that people need not rush to the State Capital or urban centres like in the past.
“The government is ready to tackle the situation. We have made all the arrangements,” Mr. Harish Rao averred. Stating that the State had witnessed 102 per cent administration of the first dose of the vaccine, he said the coverage under second dose was 77 per cent. The collectors were accordingly directed to identify the areas where the administration of second dose was delayed and speed up the process. Steps should also be taken to administer booster dose to eligible following the ICMR guidelines issued in this regard.
To a question, the Minister said the State had requested the Centre to reduce the time gap between administration of first dose and second dose as it was taking too long. This was one of the reasons why the administration of the second dose was taking time. This apart, the Centre was asked to allow administration of booster dose to all people irrespective of the age group.
