Centre's expert team reviews COVID situation in Manipur

IMPHAL:

To contain the spread of COVID-19 in the state of Manipur, an expert team has been dispatched by the centre which said that general fatigue in following COVID-appropriate behaviour could be a contributing factor to the rise in new infections in the state.

Additional deputy director general of Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, Dr Swasticharan, who is camping in Imphal to monitor the situation along with Dr Sagar K, assistant professor at AIMS, Bhopal, stressed the need to improve active contact tracing and strict monitoring to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections.

Regarding the rise in the mortality rate compared to the first wave, Swasticharan, who is also the director of Emergency Medical Relief (Disaster) said that it might be due to late detection of the virus in the patients, late admissions and comorbid conditions of the patient.

 "After completing the monitoring process, necessary recommendations will be submitted to the state to combat the pandemic and the same will be forwarded to the Centre," Dr Swasticharan said.

He also appealed to the citizens to get vaccinated.

Dr K. Rajo, Director of Health Services Manipur said the state is all set to effectively combat a potential third wave of COVID-19.

He announced that the 60-bedded COVID hospital at Canchipur, Imphal will be converted into a dedicated child COVID hospital, and the state will also appraise private hospitals to reserve COVID beds for children, he said.

"There is no dearth of medicines, equipment, hospital beds, ambulances, oxygen and medical staffs," Dr Rajo added.

The Health director also informed that there are currently three functional oxygen plants, nine are in progress and another 16 more plants will be set up soon. The state has 1,235 regular doctors, 1,359 contract doctors and more medical staff will be recruited soon, the director added.

Speaking about a plan to set up a testing facility in the state, he said the state is also preparing to set up a genome sequencing lab at IBSD (biotechnology) at Takyel, Imphal so that the testing of the COVID variants can be done in the state itself.

(Edited by Aparmita Das)

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