Niti Aayog team reviews Covid-19 preparedness in NCR districts

A team comprising officials from Niti Aayog on Tuesday held detailed discussions with officials of four districts of Meerut division and asked them to follow Delhi’s

A team comprising officials from Niti Aayog on Tuesday held detailed discussions with officials of four districts of Meerut division and asked them to follow Delhi’s model of combating Covid-19 — ramping up testing while simultaneously making efforts to bring down the case fatality rate.

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The team led by Niti Aayog member Dr VK Paul arrived in Ghaziabad on Tuesday and took a review of different strategies being adopted by the NCR districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The visit came after Union Home Minister Amit Shah had held a video conference with UP and NCR officials in June 18 and called for a unified approach to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak. On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also appreciated efforts of the Centre and Delhi government in containing the Covid pandemic outbreak and directed that a similar approach adopted in the entire NCR.

“The Niti Aayog officials also called for a consolidated policy for NCR and asked officials to increase antigen testing in UP and work towards bringing down number of fatalities. We gave a presentation to the team about the recently conducted special surveillance drive in Meerut division and also appraised them about strategies we have adopted to bring down the case fatality rate, especially in the month of July,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, Ghaziabad district magistrate.

The officials told the team that four districts of Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Meerut and Baghpat, under the Meerut division, had a case fatality rate of about 3.04% (124 deaths) in the month of June. This had come down to .7% (23 deaths) in the first 11 days of July.

The team was also apprised that a total of 15,89,22 testing were conducted till July 12 and 8,684 cases turned positive with positivity rate of 5.46%. The recovery rate stood at 66.44%.

“The team praised our district for two indicators — tests per million and case fatality rate. These are the two factors which are observed by the Centre. All the credit goes to our health teams. We have better TPM (tests per million) indicator than other districts in Delhi, UP and Haryana, besides keeping our case fatality rate low. We are already working on a strategy of ‘track, contain and treat’,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar.

Till July 12, Gautam Budh Nagar district had conducted at least 45,902 tests, according to data prepared by Meerut division officers for the review meet..

During the special surveillance drive conducted from July 2 to July 12 in Meerut division — which comprises six districts and was the most affected by Covid-19 — the teams identified 14333 suspected cases from 3278871 households surveyed in the districts of Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Meerut and Baghpat.

Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’s additional chief secretary (health), who was also present during the meeting in Ghaziabad, requested the team for five lakh more rapid antigen test kits for UP and said that testing will be hiked to 50,000 tests per day in the next few days

Till July 12, the total testing in UP reached 11,56079 and daily testing has also been ramped up to 40,000 tests per day, which stood at about 60 tests per day in March, according to UP officials..

“We also suggested the team members that some beds in government hospitals in Delhi should be reserved for patients from NCR region for better treatment. We also told them that Khoda and Loni areas were affected by Covid-19 and we implemented the sector scheme to contain cases. So, such a scheme should also be adopted by bordering districts in Delhi in order to effectively check the spread of Covid-19,” Pandey added.

The Ghaziabad health department officials told the team that they have adopted strategy for better identification of positive cases, their effective contact tracing with the help of police officers and early referral to Covid hospitals.

“There were 51 deaths in the month of June. In July, however, there has just been seven deaths in the first 14 days. For better treatment of critical patients we have reserved 20% of ICU/ventilator beds in private hospitals and critical patients are immediately referred for treatment. We have roped in eight private hospitals, which have total of 544 beds,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer of Ghaziabad.

According to the figures complied for the Niti Aayog team, the officials said that at present they have 3176 (L1 category), 3390 (L2/L3 category), 331 (ICU) and 2348 (oxygenated) beds which are operational in the four districts.

The L1, L2 and L3 hospitals are dedicated facilities which have come up under UP government’s three-tier health structure to deal with Covid-19 cases. The L1 category hospitals are meant for asymptomatic patients while L2 category facilities admit Covid-19 patients with moderate health complications. The L3 category hospitals deal with positive patients requiring critical care.

According to official figures, the four districts at present have a total of 971 active containment zones with 326 in Gutam Budh Nagar, 362 in Ghaziabad, 267 in Meerut and 44 in Baghpat.

Earlier in the day, additional chief secretary (health) Amit Mohan Prasad also visited the MMG district hospital and inspected the premises, where a new RT-PCR laboratory will be set up on directions of UP chief minister.

“The additional chief secretary directed that the RT-PCR machine will arrive from Lucknow in the next two days and four new staff members will also join. We will also provide with four lab technicians and two other staff. We are expecting that the new laboratory will start functioning within next 10 days and this will be Ghaziabad’s first in-house RT-PCR testing facility,” said Dr Anurag Bhargava, chief medical superintendent of MMG Hospital.