As Covid-19 cases continue to spiral upwards, the Centre is set to do a country wide mock drill to take stock of hospital preparedness to deal with rising infections on April 10 and 11.
This mock drill will include both public and private health facilities in all districts and states, according to a joint advisory issued by the Union Health Ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday.
The drill will aim at taking stock of availability of medicines, hospital beds, medical equipment and medical oxygen.
The advisory said that in the past few weeks Covid-19 testing has declined in a number of states, and the current levels of testing re insufficient as compared to the standards prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO), i.e 140 tests per million.
Further details of the mock drill will be communicated to the states in the virtual meeting scheduled on March 27.
“Hence it is critical to maintain optimum testing for COVID-19, equitably distributed (with suitable modifications to address emergence of new cluster of Covid cases) across the states. This is especially important to identify any emerging hotspots and take pre-emptive steps to curb virus transmission,” it stated.
This comes after, the Union Health Ministry’s earlier communications dated March 10 and 16 on the issue of seasonal circulation of pan-respiratory pathogens in the country as well as public health response to coronavirus in states and Union territories.
The advisory signed by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Director General of ICMR Dr Rajiv Bahl stated that a gradual but sustained increase in trajectory of COVID-19 cases in the country is being witnessed since mid-February.
Current Covid-19 active cases in country
As on today, most of the active COVID-19 cases in the country are largely being reported by a few states like Kerala (26.4 per cent), Maharashtra (21.7 per cent), Gujarat (13.9 per cent), Karnataka (8.6 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (6.3 per cent).
“While the rates of hospitalization and death due to the disease remain low, largely because of the significant coverage achieved in terms of Covis-19 vaccination rates by all states and UTS, this gradual rise in cases needs reinvigorated public health actions to contain the surge,” the advisory said.
Health Ministry’s Guidelines
The Union Ministry of Health has already issued detailed guidelines for management of co-infection of COVID-19 with other seasonal epidemic prone diseases.
All states and UTs have been advised to disseminate these guidelines to all health facilities and healthcare workers within the state to help in clinical case management.
“Under Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), states and District IDSP units need to closely follow the trend of ILI/SARI, monitor the proportion of SARI cases among all ILI and SARI cases, and refer sufficient number of samples for testing for Influenza and SARS-CoV-2,” the joint advisory stated.
It would also be helpful for all states and UTS to undertake re-orientation of frontline health workers on epidemiological case definitions to help early diagnosis and prompt treatment.
The advisory stated in order to limit transmission of these diseases, it is important to raise community awareness regarding adherence to respiratory and hand hygiene particularly, avoiding overcrowded and poorly ventilated settings particularly by co-morbid, wearing of masks by doctors, paramedics and other healthcare works as well as patients and their attendants within health care facilities.
“It would also be useful to take stock of hospital preparedness including drugs, beds including ICU beds, medical equipment, medical oxygen, capacity building of human resource on existing guidelines as well as vaccination coverage. To this effect, a nationwide mock drill is being planned on 10th and 11th April, 2023, wherein health facilities (both public and private) from all districts are expected to participate,” the joint advisory read.
With PTI inputs
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