The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
NEW DELHI, SEPT 10, 2021
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday chaired a high level meeting to review the Covid-19 situation and the vaccination. The topics covered included a review of the prevailing Covid-19 scenario, preparedness of the health systems to respond, availability of medical oxygen and matters relating to production, supply and distribution of Covid-19 vaccine.
The PM reviewed the status of augmentation of bed capacity for paediatric care and of facilities supported under “COVID Emergency Response Package II”, and advised States to redesign and orient primary care and block level health infrastructure in these areas to manage the situation in rural areas, a statement said.
States are being asked to maintain a buffer stock for drugs used in management of COVID-19, mucormycosis, MIS-C at the district level, it added.
“It was discussed that across the world, there are countries where the number of active Covid cases continues to remain high. In India too, the figures from states like Maharashtra and Kerala indicate that there can be no room for complacency,” the statement said.
However, the weekly positivity was at less than three per cent for the 10th consecutive week, it added.
The PM was briefed about the concentration of cases in a few geographies, districts with high test positivity as well as the week on week test positivity rate in the country.
Modi spoke about the need for constant genome sequencing to monitor emergence of mutants. The officers informed him that INSACOG now consists of 28 labs distributed across the country. The lab network is also linked with a hospital network for clinical correlation. Sewage sampling is also being done for genomic surveillance. PM was apprised that states have been requested to share SARS COV2 positive samples with INSACOG regularly.
The PM said that the entire ecosystem to ensure increased oxygen availability, including oxygen concentrators, cylinders and PSA plants, need to be rapidly augmented. Efforts are also on to install 961 Liquid Medical Oxygen Storage Tanks and 1,450 Medical Gas Pipeline Systems with an aim to support at least one such unit per district. The Ambulance network is also being augmented to ensure at least one ambulance per block. PM also reviewed the status of PSA oxygen plants coming up across the country. PM was also updated that around 1 lakh oxygen concentrators and 3 lakh oxygen cylinders have been distributed to the states.
On vaccines, the Prime Minister was apprised that around 58 per cent of India’s adult population has received the first dose and around 18 per cent of India’s adult population has received the second dose. PM was updated about the vaccine pipeline and increased supply of vaccines.
Principal Secretary to PM, Cabinet Secretary, Principal Scientific Advisor, Health Secretary, Member Health NITI Aayog and other important officials were present in the meeting.
