Latur, Osmanabad, Hingoli and Washim districts in Maharashtra did not have any new COVID-19 case in the last 14 days up till Tuesday
1.24 crore COVID Warriors registered in Government database
-globalbihari bureau
New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry stated on Tuesday that Latur, Osmanabad, Hingoli and Washim from Maharashtra have not reported any new COVID-19 case in the last 14 days. “This takes the number of districts having no new cases to 61,” Luv Aggarwal, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, stated. He however said, Bhiwani in Haryana had been dropped from this list and Pratapgarh in Rajasthan had been added to the list of Mahe (Puducherry), Kodagu/Coorg (Karnataka) and Pauri Garhwal (Uttarakhand) – the districts where no fresh COVID-19 case has been reported for the last 28 days.
The number of COVID-19 positive cases stands at 18,601 as on date. 3,252 people have recovered, which takes the recovery rate to 17.48%. A total of 705 people recovered yesterday, which happens to be the highest number of recoveries in a single day till Tuesday evening.
The Joint Secretary informed that the Health Ministry has issued guidelines to be followed on detection of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case in a Non-COVID facility. This has been done based on reports of health care workers contracting COVID-19 infection leading to closure of hospitals and those of unrelated cases turning out to be positive. Hospital Infection Control Committee has been made responsible for monitoring these issues. “The Committee has to ensure that healthcare workers are oriented about infection prevention and control guidelines,” he said, adding that keeping occurrence of COVID-19 in mind, hospitals should keep a contingency plan ready alongside staffing plan to continue operations. “Based on the scope of the cluster and the degree to which the hospital is affected, and the degree of risk associated with the patient, like in the case of any chronic disease, the hospital should carry out adequate disinfection and then continue its functions. If more positive cases get reported, then that particular section of the health facility can be temporarily shut down. If the source of infection is not detected or large number of cases gets reported, then it can be converted into a COVID facility.The COVID-19 case is to be informed to local health authorities and the patient to be transferred to isolation ward of that hospital. ” he said.
Spelling out the government guidelines, he informed that a COVID-19 patient is to be provided with a mask and only one dedicated health worker should attend to that patient. The health worker should also take required preventions. Based on clinical status, if required, the patient is to be transferred to a dedicated COVID facility by following standard precautions. The facility shall be disinfected. All contacts of this patient shall be quarantined and followed up for 14 days. “All close contacts shall be put on HCQ for a period of 7 weeks keeping in mind the contraindications of HCQ also. If any health care worker gets infected, he or she must be removed from roster and his or her close contacts should be quarantined for 14 days. At the same time, to reduce undetected contact and spread of infection between patients and healthcare workers in all hospitals, active screening of all employees can be done on a daily basis in the hospital and triaging guidelines should be followed in Outpatient and Emergency Departments of hospitals,” he said.
