Underlining the “alarming rise in daily number of active cases which currently stand at 16,79,000” and “a sharp growth of 10.2% in the number of deaths”, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan Saturday stated “the widening gap between daily new cases and daily new recoveries reflects that the infection is spreading at a much faster rate than recoveries with consistently growing active cases”.
At a gathering to evaluate the supply of oxygen, ventilators, manpower, medicines and hospital beds in 11 states/UT reporting a surge in Covid-19 instances, Harsh Vardhan stated: “India is currently reporting the sharpest growth rate of 7.6% in new Covid cases, which is 1.3 times higher than case growth rate of 5.5% reported in June 2020.”
He stated the Centre is dashing 6,303 further ventilators to 6 states of concern: 1121 ventilators to Maharashtra, 1700 to Uttar Pradesh, 1500 to Jharkhand, 1600 to Gujarat, 152 to Madhya Pradesh, and 230 to Chhattisgarh.
Later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired a gathering to evaluate the degrees of preparedness, was knowledgeable by officers that one lakh oxygen cylinders are being procured and will likely be “supplied to states soon”.
On the scarcity of hospital beds, the Prime Minister directed officers to make sure further provide by organising momentary hospitals and isolation centres within the states.
“All necessary measures must be taken to ramp up the availability of hospital beds for Covid patients. Installation of approved medical oxygen plants should be accelerated,” Modi stated throughout the assembly.
On the problem of vaccines, he directed officers to make efforts to utilise the whole nationwide capability, in public in addition to personal sector, to ramp up vaccine manufacturing.
On the supply of Remdesivir, he was instructed that its manufacturing had been ramped as much as present round 74.10 lakh vials/month in May; that provides of the anti-viral drug have been elevated to excessive caseload states — from 67,900 vials on April 11 going as much as over 2,06,000 vials on April 15 in excessive caseload states.
The Prime Minister reiterated that using Remdesivir should be in accordance with medical administration protocols and that “misuse and black marketing must be strictly curbed”.
Given the alarming improve within the variety of deaths being reported in surge states, the Prime Minister underlined that early testing and monitoring of contacts stay key to decreasing mortality.
“There is no substitute to testing, tracking, and treatment… close coordination with States must be ensured in handling the pandemic,” he stated.
Earlier, Harsh Vardhan reassured the states that vaccine shares are being replenished. A press release from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare quoted him saying: “The Total Consumption of vaccines so far (wastage included) has been approximately 12 crore 57 lakh 18 thousand doses against the 14 crore 15 lakh doses provided by the Centre to the States. About 1 crore 58 lakh doses are still available with the States while another 1 crore and 16 lakh 84 thousand are in pipeline, to be delivered by next week.”
“Stocks of every small state are replenished after 7 days. For big states, the time period is 4 days,” he stated. Emphasising that there isn’t any scarcity of vaccine, he strongly pushed for additional ramping up of the vaccination train.
Saturday’s assembly was attended by Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
During the assembly, all 11 states/UT flagged 4 points: augmenting provide of oxygen cylinders; stepping up the availability of Remdesivir in hospitals; including to the ventilator inventory; and enhanced provide of vaccine doses.
The states additionally raised issues over the excessive transmissible pressure being reported in Maharashtra; they requested the Centre on capping of costs of important medicine like Remdesivir which has been bought within the black market at exorbitant costs. The Delhi authorities requested further beds in Central authorities hospitals — as was executed in 2020.
Following the assembly, the Centre launched revised most retail costs of Remdesivir: Cadila Healthcare (Rs 899); Syngene (Rs 2,450); Dr Reddy’s (2,700); Cipla (Rs 3,000); Mylan (Rs 3,400); Jubilant (Rs 3,400); and Hetero (Rs 3,490).
At the assembly, Harsh Vardhan additionally steered that the states give particular focus to outstanding 5-6 cities underneath their administration, map medical faculties to both these cities or adjoining 2-3 districts; embrace giant containment zones for reaching neighborhood quarantine; plan upfront and improve Covid hospitals and oxygenated beds.
Meanwhile, the Centre additionally requested states to utilise as much as 50% of their annual allocation of State Disaster Response Fund and that of the Union Health Ministry permitting for utilisation of unspent pending steadiness underneath the National Health Mission for Covid administration.
