The Union Health Ministry, on the 13th of May, confirmed 1,225 positive cases of the Novel Coronavirus, who were returnees of Nanded Hazur Sahib in Punjab.
This incident generated a huge number of COVID-19 cases out of the 4,216 cases in Punjab.
Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare urged Punjab Government to further strengthen SARI/ILI screening, in addition to ensuring that non-COVID health issues such as immunisation drives, TB case finding and treatment, providing blood transfusion for dialysis patients, treatment of cancer patients, ANC of pregnant women, etc, are not adversely affected.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “As the available data indicate a decline in the notification of TB cases in the private and public clinics, the state needs to give priority to this area too.”
Mr. Vardhan held a high level meeting through a video conference with Balbir Singh Sidhu, Health Minister of Punjab. This is a part of a series of one-to-one discussions with various states/UTs Health Ministers and Collectors of Red Zone and High priority districts to take stock of preparedness. According to the health ministry, as on May 12, “all 22 districts stand affected by COVID-19 with a total 1913 cases; 3 districts (Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Patiala) are in the Red Zone and 15 are in the Orange Zone. The total samples collected are 43,999 with sample positivity rate at 4.3 per cent. The Nanded Hazoor Sahib returnees constituted the bulk of cases with 1,225 positive among the total of 4,216.”
The state government said that it has another big challenge at hand with the number of migrant labour returning being around 20,521.
A total of 74,281 cases have been reported where 24,386 persons have been cured and 2,415 deaths have been reported so far.
The Union Health Ministry also said, “In the last 24 hours, 3,525 new confirmed cases have been added. While the doubling time in the past 14 days was 11, it has improved to 12.6 in the last three days,” it noted. It added that the fatality rate is 3.2 per cent and the recovery rate is pegged at 32.8 per cent “,
Cumulatively, 18,56,477 tests have been done so far for COVID-19, whereas, 94,708 samples were tested on Tuesday. “Today, there are nine states/UTs that have not reported any cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. A&N Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Ladakh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram. Also, Daman & Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported any cases till.”
India reported a total of 75278 cases of the Novel Coronavirus till the 13th of May.
Source: IANS.
