ANSWER
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND
FAMILY WELFARE
(SHRI ASHWINI KUMAR CHOUBEY)
(a) to (d): The current phase of pandemic in India is on multiple trajectories across the urban and semi urban areas of the country. Since the country has a huge population, it is expected that there would be large number of cases every day during this phase. Tamil Nadu is reporting a weekly average of about 5607 cases per day. As of now the number of cases in Tamil Nadu have stabilized. The weekly trend of cases for the State of Tamil Nadu is at Annexure I.
For appropriate management of COVID-19 cases, a three tier arrangement of health facilities [(i) COVID Care Center with isolation beds for mild or pre-symptomatic cases; (ii) Dedicated COVID Health Centre (DCHC) with oxygen supported isolation beds for moderate cases and (iii) Dedicated COVID Hospital (DCH) with ICU beds for severe cases] has been implemented. Tertiary care hospitals under ESIC, Defence, Railways, paramilitary forces, Steel Ministry etc. have been leveraged for case management. As on 15th September, 2020, a total of 15,360 COVID treatment facilities with 13,20,881 dedicated isolation bed without O2 support have been created. Also, a total of 2,32,516 oxygen supported isolation beds and 63,194 ICU beds (including 32,409 ventilator beds). Guidelines on Clinical management of COVID-19 have been issued and are being updated regularly.
In accordance with the guidance of MoHFW, Government of Tamil Nadu, has set up a similar three tier structure, the details of which are given in Annexure II. The State was advised to plan for the requisite number of isolation, oxygen supported and ICU beds, based on the prevalent and expected case growth rate.
MoHFW is also monitoring the COVID hospital infrastructure. In addition, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been monitoring and regularly interacting with State Government to advice on public health action to control spread of COVID. Five Central teams have been deployed to the State of Tamil Nadu in the months of April, May and July, 2020.
Government of India has taken a series of other actions to prevent, control and mitigate the impact of COVID-19. India followed a whole of Government and whole of society approach. Hon’ble Prime Minister, a High level Group of Ministers (GoM), Cabinet Secretary, Committee of Secretaries and senior officers in MoHFW continue to monitor public health response to COVID-19 in the country.
The public health actions were taken in a pre-emptive, pro-active, graded manner based on the evolving scenario. A number of travel advisories were issued restricting inflow of international travelers, till such time, commercial flights were suspended on 23rd March, 2020. Till then, a total of 14,154 flights with 15,24,266 passengers have been screened at these airports. Screening was also done at 12 major and 65 minor ports and land border crossings. In the initial part of the pandemic, India evacuated a large number of stranded passengers from then COVID affected countries (China, Italy, Iran, Japan, Malaysia) and again in the un-lockdown phase, a total of 13,18,891 passengers have been brought back (as on 14th September, 2020) and followed up.
Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) is conducting contact tracing through community surveillance. In the earlier part of the pandemic, this was done for travel related cases and subsequently for cases being reported from community as a part of containment strategy. As on 14th September 2020, a total of about 40 lakh persons have been kept under surveillance. There are 726 laboratories conducting COVID-19 Testing. India is testing is about 1 million samples a day. A total of 5.8 crore samples have been tested so far (as on 14th September 2020).
States are being supported in terms of supply of logistics. So far 1.41 Crore of PPE Kits, 3.44 crores N-95 masks, 10.84 crore tablets of Hydroxychloroquine and 30,663 ventilators and 1,02,400 oxygen cylinders have been supplied to States/UTs/ Central Government hospitals so far (as on 14th September, 2020).
Various cadres of personnel and volunteers across sectors and departments for COVID related works and maintenance of other essential medical services have been worked out, trained through resources made available on the website of MoHFW, iGOT (online platform) by DOPT (https://igot.gov.in/igot/).
MoHFW website is being daily to provide general public with information on current status of COVID-19 spread in India. Communication material is also being hosted on MoHFW website and through social media. A dedicated call centre / helpline (1075) has been started to guide community at large which are being used by the citizens very effectively and on a regular basis.
As far as development of vaccine is concerned, more than 30 vaccine candidates have been supported which are in different stages of development, 3 candidates are in advanced stage of Phase I/II/III trials and more than 4 are in advanced pre-clinical development stage. A National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 has been constituted on 7th August, 2020, under NITI Ayog.
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