Expressing his grief that each death is tragic, he cautioned on the high number of fatalities being reported
Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) chaired the 27th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 via video-conference yesterday.
During the meet, he said, “Today is the 11th day in succession where our number of recoveries is more than the number of new cases. This is also the eighth day in succession where we are having less than three lakh daily new cases. This is a positive sign. Right now, our active cases in the country are 27 lakhs. A couple of weeks back, we had over 37 lakh active cases.”
Expressing his grief that each death is tragic, he also cautioned on the high number of fatalities being reported.
Speaking on vaccines and clinical intervention, Dr Vardhan said, “We have already given 19.6 crore doses to our countrymen. Over 60 lakh doses are still with the states and further 21 lakh doses are in the pipeline.”
He also notified that the Centre has already sent over 70 lakh remdesivir vials and 45,735 ventilators to states and Union Territories (UTs).
On genome sequencing, the minister informed that 25,739 samples have been sequenced and variant B.1.617 has been found in 5,261 samples, making it the most common mutation detected till now. He also informed that states have been requested to send samples regularly for better analysis.
Dr Vardhan also appreciated the coordination between Centre and the states in flagging emerging cases of mucormycosis.
A total of 5,424 cases have been reported from 18 states with the most number of cases being reported from Gujarat and Maharashtra. Out of these, 4,556 cases have a history of Covid-19 infection while the rest are non-COVID cases. Fifty five per cent of the affected had diabetes.
“Nine lakh vials of amphotericin-B are being imported by the Central government for treatment of black fungus. Of this, 50,000 vials have been received and around three lakh vials will be available in the next seven days”, he added.
He also highlighted implementation of the SoPs of the government on COVID management in peri-urban/urban/tribal areas are being actively pursued and monitored regularly by health ministry in the state review meetings.
In addition to it, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State (MoS) – health, who was virtually present for the meeting, stressed on streamlining the availability of 2-DG drug by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), increasing the affordability and availability of home-testing kits. He espoused the need that a protocol should be made to streamline supply of mobile-/home-testing kits in the country.
Dr Sujeet K Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), presented a detailed report on the trajectory of COVID in the states and UTs. He cautioned that at 7.86 per cent, India’s growth rate is a matter of concern. He showed figures related to the number of cases, number of deaths, their growth rate and how they compared to the rest of the world.
He presented a granular analysis of the trajectory of the pandemic in each state pointing out critical parameters like positivity, Rapid Anti-gen Test (RAT) and Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) per cent breakup, concentration of cases in particular districts and other trends like fatality and hospitalisation status of affected states.
S Aparna, Secretary (Pharma) informed on the achievements of the dedicated cell that has been created to coordinate production and allocation of drugs in demand to treat COVID-19. The cell has monitored the augmentation of production, domestic procurement and allocation of drugs like remdesivir, tocilizumab and amphotericin-B.
Speaking on the increased demand of drugs to treat mucormycosis, Dr Aparna informed that five more manufacturers have been given the licence to manufacture amphotericin-B within the country. She also stated that lateral manufacturers have also been urged to ramp up the production of the active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) so that production of the drug is not stuck in any bottlenecks and can be augmented smoothly.
She informed that her department is engaged with Director General of Health Services (DGHS) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on requirements of COVID drugs for paediatric patients.
The others present in the meeting were Hardeep S Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation and Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways (I/C), and Chemical and Fertilizers, along with other senior government officials, who had joined virtually.