Covid-19 mock drills : States to check hospital preparedness from today

As Covid-19 cases surge in India, the ministry of health has announced nationwide mock drills on Monday and Tuesday to assess hospital preparedness. Both public and private facilities are set to take part in the drills.

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya will visit AIIMS, Jhajjar on Monday to oversee the mock drill, officials said on Sunday.

Mandaviya held a meeting Friday to ask state health ministers to monitor the mock drills in their state hospitals. State and district health departments have also been urged to analyse the ability to tackle the rise in coronavirus infections.

In the virtual meeting, Mandaviya also emphasised on the need to identify emergency hotspots by checking trends of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases, increasing testing and vaccination, and ensuring readiness of hospital infrastructure.

Besides enhancing genome sequencing, ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate’ and Covid-Appropriate Behaviour’ continue to remain the response strategy.

Currently the World Health Organisation (WHO) is closely tracking a variant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5, and six other variants are under monitoring (BQ.1, BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBF and XBB.1.16).

States and union territories were also requested to immediately increase the rate of testing from 100 tests per million as of the week ending April 7.

Covid infections in the country have seen an upward trend in the past few days, with the daily fresh infections at 2,994 on April 1, 3,824 on April 2, 3,641 on April 3, 3,038 on April 4, 4,435 on April 5, 5,335 on April 6 and 6,050 on April 7 and 6155 on April 8.

The overall active cases currently stand at 32,814, as of Sunday, with the daily positivity rate at 3.39 per cent, the Health Ministry stated in its release.