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Covid-19: Harsh Vardhan reviews situation in Karnataka

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByHT Correspondent | Edited by Smriti Sinha
Nov 05, 2020 09:48 AM IST

The minister held a meeting through video conferencing to review preparedness and measures for ensuring Covid appropriate behaviour with health and medical education minister of Karnataka

Union minister for health and family welfare Harsh Vardhan reviewed the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) situation in Karnataka, which is one of the high disease burden states with 835,773 cases and 11,281 deaths reported so far.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan.(PTI)
Union health minister Harsh Vardhan.(PTI)

Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday held a meeting through video conferencing to review Covid-19 preparedness and measures for ensuring Covid appropriate behaviour with K.Sudhakar, health and medical education minister, Karnataka, and other senior officials of the State government.

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“We will soon be completing a journey of 10 months in fighting Corona. The country is witnessing substantial improvements in Covid-19 parameters. The number of cases and deaths are in a declining phase. The active cases have been substantially reduced. The Recovery Rate of India has surpassed 92% today. The Case Fatality Rate is also declining and stands at 1.49%. With over 2,000 labs, the testing capacity has also increased,” said the minister.

Comparing the Covid-19 trajectory of Karnataka with that of the country, the minister also said, “Karnataka has the second highest cumulative cases after Maharashtra. It has a Recovery Rate of 93% which is more than the national recovery rate. The case fatality rate (1.35%) is also lower than the national average.”

Some of the worst affected districts in the state, where positive cases are increasing and the fatality rate is showing a rising trend, are Urban Bengaluru, Mysuru, Bellari, Dakshin Kannada, Hassan and Belagavi.

The health authorities of the state told the minister that they were following 4Ts of tracing, testing, treatment and technology to tackle the outbreak. Testing has been increased from 10,000 per day in June to over 80,000 per day now. Testing facilities have been made available in all the medical colleges in the state. This has increased testing capacities manifold.

At least 8 million tests have been done in the state so far. The state authorities stated that 80% of the tests done are by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR).

The state has also reduced the active cases by 37% between October 25 and November 1. Random pool testing and targeted testing has been done to ensure early containment and appropriate treatment. Containment strategies were adopted in the urban areas. Education activities have been given significant boost in the state and a separate fund is allocated for this purpose.

“The state needs to engage aggressively with all the stakeholders in those districts which have fatality rate higher than the national average,” said Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan during the meeting.

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