Of near 2,500 cases, 400 linked to Jamaat; plan to widen testing
As the number of coronavirus positive cases raced towards 2,500 mark, with nearly 400 of them linked to Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi, the Government on Thursday said it has identified 20 existing and 22 potential hotspots of Covid-19 in the country.
The Government will also conduct more tests by changing its testing protocol even as it maintained that there is no evidence of widespread community transmission and that containment strategy will require large human resource.
Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that tests to identify new cases is in progress, as attendees from the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi had since moved to States across the country.
Tamil Nadu has reported 173 positive cases and their epidemiological linkage traced to the Nizamuddin meet. Agarwal said, “As many as 328 new positive cases and 12 deaths have been reported since Wednesday. A total of 151 patients have recovered.”
The Ministry of Home Affairs said of 2,000 persons evacuated from the Tablighi Jamaat headquarters in Delhi, 1,804 were quarantined and 334 admitted to hospitals.
The number of coronavirus cases in India crossed 2,400 as 2,069 confirmed cases were reported across the country till Thursday. Additionally, there have been 156 patients who have recovered and 53 patients who have succumbed to the infection. The total active cases are 1,860.
Agarwal said order had been placed for over 1 crore personal protective equipment (PPE), with stepped up domestic production of N-95 masks.
The official said that domestic manufacturing of N95 masks has been stepped up amid the ongoing crisis.
Suggesting that it is bracing for a large human resources to battle the disease, a document from the Ministry said that “Although there is no evidence of widespread community transmission, 20 existing and 22 potential hotspots have been identified. The containment measures to break the cycle of transmission and clinical management of those affected would require large human resources.”
The Ministry said that enhanced deployment of human resources is required in clinical management, surveillance, psycho-social care, management of quarantine after, isolation facilities, logistics and supply chain.
It said that human resources pooled from various sources will be assigned for such roles. “Such identified HR needs to be trained online using online training programmes developed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW),” it stated.
Each State has been directed to identify and designate a nodal officer for training. The officer will coordinate all training activities in the State.
For COVID-19 management, the district administration will also pool-in the requisite human resources.
“Such pooled human resources would stay in the containment zone till the containment operations are over,” the Minister further added in the document.
The advisory added, “For isolation areas, in addition to training all hospital staff, dentists and AYUSH practitioners available should also be trained. Retired doctors and other healthcare professionals should be identified to work in non-Covid areas.”
It stated quarantine facilities are meant to house asymptomatic cases and the number identified and trained manpower should be equal to the number of COVID-19 warriors.