COVID-19 CASES JUMP TO 6,25,544 IN INDIA AS DEATH TOLL RISES TO 18,213

Telangana

From Our Bureau

3RD JULY 2020

India witnessed a surge in COVID-19 positive cases with a single-day highest record 20,903 fresh cases reported on Friday, taking the country’s cumulative tally to 6,25,544. The death toll rose to 18,213, with 379 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

Early detection and timely clinical management of COVID-19 cases has resulted in increasing daily recoveries. During the last 24 hours, a sharp rise of recoveries was observed with 20,033 COVID-19 patients having been cured, taking the cumulative figure to 3,79,892. The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients has crossed 60 percent. It stands at 60.73 percent today.

Presently, there are 2,27,439 active cases under medical supervision. Coordinated efforts at all levels of government for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 are showing good results with consistently increasing gap between Recoveries and Active cases. As on date, there are 1,52,453 recovered cases more than the active COVID-19 cases.

As per the “Test, Trace, Treat” strategy with various measures been taken recently to remove all impediments for COVID-19 testing and facilitation of widespread testing by States/Union Territories, there has been a steady rise in the samples tested every day with close to 93 lakh samples being tested till date. During the last 24 hours 2,41,576 samples have been tested. The cumulative number of samples tested, as on date, is 92,97,749.

This has also been possible due to the ever expanding network of testing labs in the country. With 775 labs in the government sector and 299 private labs, there are as many as 1,074 labs today. These include: Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 579 (Govt: 366 + Private: 213), TrueNat based testing labs: 405 (Govt: 376 + Private: 29) and CBNAAT based testing labs: 90 (Govt: 33 + Private: 57).

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued Revised Guidelines for Home Isolation of very mild/ pre-symptomatic/ asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. The guidelines are in supersession to the guidelines issued on the subject on 10th May, 2020.

Since 1st April 2020, the Government of India has distributed more than 2.02 crore N95 masks and more than 1.18 crore PPE kits to States / UTs / Central Institutions, free of cost. Also, more than 6.12 crore HCQ tablets have been distributed to them.

In addition, so far, 11,300 ‘Make in India’ ventilators have been dispatched to various States /UTs/ Central Institutions, out of which 6,154 ventilators stand already delivered to various hospitals. GOI is also ensuring their installation/commissioning. This will help to bridge the massive gap in availability of ventilators in COVID ICU facilities.

MoHFW is also supplying 1.02 lakh oxygen cylinders to States/UTs, out of which 72,293 have been delivered to strengthen oxygen beds there.

Till now, 7.81 lakh PPEs and 12.76 lakh N95 masks have been supplied in Delhi, 11.78 lakh PPEs and 20.64 lakh N95 masks in Maharashtra, and 5.39 lakh PPEs and 9.81 lakh N95 masks in Tamil Nadu by MoHFW.

Union Government along with States/UTs has been relentlessly working for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19. Union Government’s central role has been in strengthening health infrastructure to fight the pandemic.

Along with augmenting COVID-19 facilities, the Union government has been providing medical supplies free of cost to the State/UT governments to supplement their efforts. Most of the products supplied by Government of India (GOI) were not being manufactured in the country in the beginning, and there was a global demand due to the pandemic resulting in scare availability in the foreign markets.

However, with the combined efforts of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Ministry of Textiles and Ministry of Pharmaceuticals, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and others, domestic industry has been encouraged to manufacture and supply essential medical equipment like PPEs, N95 masks, ventilators etc. during this period. With the result, resolve for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’ has been strengthened and most of the supplies made by GOI are domestically manufactured. (eom)

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