Covid-19 Bulletin: Recovery rate nears 60%, now private doctors can prescribe Covid test too and more…

New Delhi: The recovery rate of COVID-19 patients is fast moving to touch 60 percent in the country. Currently, the recovery rate is 59.52 percent. During the last 24 hours, 11,881 patients have been cured taking the cumulative figure to over 3. 59 lakh. Presently, there are 2,26,947 active cases and all are under medical supervision.

Maharashtra with 93,154 cured cases, is leading in the list of 15 States in terms of absolute numbers of COVID-19 recovered cases followed by Delhi with 59,992 cured case and Tamil Nadu with 52, 926 recovered patients.

Recovery rate nears 60%, gap b/w recovered & active cases cross 1.30 lakh

As on date, there are 1,32,912 recovered cases more than the active COVID-19 cases.Timely clinical management of COVID-19 cases has resulted in more than 10,000 daily recoveries. During the last 24 hours, a total of 11,881 COVID-19 patients have been cured, taking the cumulative figure to 3,59,859. This further takes the recovery rate to 59.52%. Presently, there are 2,26,947 active cases and all are under medical supervision. During the last 24 hours 2,29,588 samples have been tested. The cumulative number of samples tested, as on date, is 90,56,173. The testing lab network in the country is further strengthened. With 768 labs in the government sector and 297 private labs, there are as many as 1065 labs in the country.

Now, private practitioner can also prescribe COVID-19 test

Through a significant step announced by the Central Government, COVID-19 testing can now be done on the prescription of any registered practitioner, and not exclusively a Government doctor. The Centre has strongly advised States/UTs to take immediate steps to facilitate testing at the earliest by enabling all qualified medical practitioners, including private practitioners, to prescribe COVID test to any individual fulfilling the criteria for testing as per ICMR guidelines.Reiterating that ‘Test-Track-Treat’ is the key strategy for early detection and containment of the outbreak, the Centre has advised States/ UTs to take all possible steps to ensure full capacity utilization of all COVID-19 testing laboratories in the State/ UT. This shall ensure full capacity utilization of all labs, especially the private ones, thus hugely benefitting the people.

Centre urges states to ramp up Covid-19 testing

Ms. Preeti Sudan, Health Secretary and DrBalramBhargava, DG (ICMR) urged the States/UTs yesterday to take immediate steps to facilitate and ramp up testing. They have reiterated that ‘test-track-treat’ is the key strategy for early detection and containment of the pandemic.Pointing out that in some States/ UTs, the capacity utilization of the testing labs, particularly the ones in private sector, is grossly sub-optimal, They are also advised to facilitate testing at the earliest by enabling all qualified medical practitioners, including private practitioners, to prescribe COVID test to any individual fulfilling the criteria for testing as per ICMR guidelines. While RT-PCR is the gold standard for diagnosis of COVlD-19, ICMR has recently approved the use of a point-of-care Rapid Antigen Test for early detection of COVID-19.In order to facilitate testing, States/UTs have also been advised to make efforts in ‘campaign mode’ by setting up camps/ using mobiles vans in high incidence areas to collect samples of all symptomatic individuals as well as their contacts, and get those samples tested by using rapid antigen test.

In addition to ramping up and facilitating testing, States/UTs have also been urged to pay attention to ‘contact tracing’ as it holds the key to containing the virus.

More than 46,000 ASHA workers contributing to Covid-19 fight

About 46,627 ASHAs in Odisha have emerged as champions against COVID-19 in rural and urban areas, addressing local health needs. They are seen to be working closely with GaonKalyanSamitis in the rural areas and MahilaArogayaSamitis in the urban areas, community collectives within which ASHAs are embedded. They have used these forums to facilitate COVID preventive actions by promoting the use of masks/face covers when stepping out in public spaces, being attentive towards frequent hand washing, following physical distancing, enhancing awareness of COVID symptoms etc.The ASHAs have created wide awareness about these through IEC activities like distribution of leaflets and posters at SwasthyaKantha (wall at village level).

Ensuring Oximeter & oxygen concentrators in sufficient quantity

Government is striving to ensure sufficient availability of critical medical equipment for clinical management of COVID-19 in the country. Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has identified list of critical medical equipment for the same and has requested National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to ensure availability of the same in the country. The Government is committed for availability of life saving drugs/devices at affordable prices to the consumers. All the medical devices have been notified as Drugs and have come under regulatory regime. In order to keep check on the price rise of critical medical equipment, NPPA has called for price related data from manufacturers/importers of (i) Pulse Oximeter and (ii) Oxygen Concentrator to ensure that prices existing as on 1st April 2020 should not be increased more than 10% in a year.A Stakeholders Consultation with Medical Devices Industry Associations and Civil Society Group was held in NPPA on 1st July 2020 wherein it was stressed that all the manufacturers/importers of critical medical equipment shall ensure sufficient availability of the same in the country. The Medical Devices Industry Associations have been urged to bring down the retail price of critical medical equipment.

PM Modi speaks to Vladimir Putin on phone

Prime Minister Shri NarendraModi spoke on phone with President of the Russian Federation H.E. Mr Vladimir Putin on 2 July 2020.The leaders took note of the effective measures undertaken by the two countries to address the negative consequences of the Covid-19 global pandemic and agreed on the importance of closer India-Russia ties for jointly addressing the challenges of the post-COVID world.They agreed to maintain the momentum of bilateral contacts and consultations, leading to the annual bilateral Summit to be held in India later this year. Prime Minister conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India for the bilateral Summit.

Drug Discovery Hackathon 2020 launched

Union Minister for Human Resource Development Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, and Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare &Science and Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan today launched Drug Discovery Hackathon through online platform. This Drug Discovery Hackathon is a joint initiative of MHRD, AICTE and CSIR and supported by partners like CDAC, MyGov, Schrodinger and ChemAxon.Hackathon will primarily focus on computational aspects of drug discovery and will have three Tracks. Track-1 will deal with computational modelling for drug design or identifying ‘lead’ compounds from existing databases that may have the potential to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 while Track-2 will encourage participants to develop new tools and algorithms using data analytics and AI/ML approach for predicting drug-like compounds with minimal toxicity and maximal specificity and selectivity. A third track, named Track 3 is a Moon-shot approach which will only deal with novel and out-of-the-box ideas in this field.

Paswan urges states/UTs to speed up distribution of food grains

Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan held a media briefing yesterday to provide details of provision, preparedness and necessary steps taken by the ministry for providing additional food grains @ /month 5kg/person free of cost to all beneficiaries (AAY and PHH) covered under Targeted Public Distribution System as per provision of NFSA (including those covered under DBT).Shri Paswan also thanked Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for extending this scheme till November end, so that poor and needy persons will not go hungry and get free ration during the rainy and forthcoming festival seasons at the time of current Covid-19 pandemic. A total of 200 LMT grains will be distributed among 80 crore NFSA beneficiaries free of cost, as well as a total of 9.78 LMT gram will also be distributed among about 20 crore families.

INS Jalashwa brings back 687 Indian nationals from Iran

INS Jalashwa, deployed by the Indian Navy for “Operation SamudraSetu”, entered Tuticorinharbour yesterday, with 687 Indian nationals embarked from Bandar Abbas, Iran. So far Indian Navy ships have brought back 920 Indian citizens from Iran.With this evacuation, the Indian Navy has now repatriated 3992 Indian nationals from Maldives, Sri Lanka and Iran during the ongoing pandemic.

SER runs 2266 trips of parcel express trains to supply essential commodities

South Eastern Railway (SER), during this national crisis, has already run 2266 trips of Time Tabled Parcel Express Trains carrying essential commodities viz., food items, groceries, medicines, medical equipment, fish, fruits, cotton goods, gunny bags, vegetables, onion, ginger, garlic and other daily need items to different parts of the country from April 2 to June 30, 2020. SER during the above period, has carried 36,532 tonnes of parcel traffic containing 13,73,645 packages to different places in the country.