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Covid preparedness: HP to ramp up sampling, testing
Principal secretary, health, Subhashish Panda on Thursday convened a meeting of chief medical officers to review the situation
With a huge tourist rush expected in Himachal on Christmas and New Year amid fresh Covid threats, the state health department has directed the districts to ramp up testing and asked people to follow appropriate protocols.
Principal secretary, health, Subhashish Panda on Thursday convened a meeting of chief medical officers (CMOs) to review the situation. The district health authorities were asked to be alert and ready to tackle any surge in Covid cases.
Panda said that CMOs have been directed to increase sampling and conduct more RTPCR tests.
Meanwhile, people have been asked to get the precautionary dose of Covid vaccine.
The principal secretary also appealed to people to adopt Covid-appropriate behaviour and maintain social distancing norms in public places. Instructions were also given to the hospitals to revamp oxygen beds, ventilator beds and manpower for any eminent spurt of cases.
State health department has directed the testing labs to ensure that those who have returned from abroad and tested positive, their samples be sent for genome sequencing.
The state has currently 24 active cases of Covid with six of them being reported on Thursday. Since the outbreak till date, total 3,12,626 cases of coronavirus have been registered in the state of which 3,08,389 had recovered.
The health institutions have 3,570 Covid beds of which 2,455 have oxygen support while 353 are ICU beds.
As of Thursday, nine beds, including seven oxygen supported and two ICU, were occupied while 3,561 beds were available.
Lahaul-Spiti legislator tests positive for swine flu, hospitalised
Congress legislator from Lahaul and Spiti Ravi Thakur has been admitted to the isolation ward of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi after contracting swine flu infection, officials said on Thursday.
Thakur, a second-term MLA from the tribal district, had participated in the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by former AICC president Rahul Gandhi in Dausa of Rajasthan on December 16.
He was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday evening.
“I, along with my friends, had participated in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Rajasthan recently. However, I was not feeling well after returning from the Yatra. Condition deteriorated in last three-four days after which I went for a health checkup,” wrote Thakur on his social media page.
“I will be back among my people soon after recovering,” he added.
