Government of India is taking several steps for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19

New Delhi, April 15: Government of India is taking several steps for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 through a collective effort with the States/UTs. These are being regularly reviewed and monitored at the highest level.

As mentioned by Hon’ble Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi yesterday in his national address, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued detailed directions to all States/UTs.

With a view to managing to COVID-19, every district of the country has been divided into:

• Hotspot districts,
• Non-Hotspot districts with reported cases, and
• Green zone districts.

The main criteria of these hotspot districts are those from which more cases are being currently reported or where the rate of growth of cases is more i.e. that doubling rate of cases is less.

The Cabinet Secretary held a high level review meeting today through a video conference with all the Chief Secretaries, Health Secretaries, DGPs, District Collectors, Municipal Commissioners, SPs, CMOs and other officials of States/UTs. During the video conference, a detailed orientation had been made on hotspots and containment strategies. Further, a detailed discussion was held regarding large outbreak containment strategies and cluster containment strategies. These containment strategies describe how to delineate the containment zone and buffer zone. In these containment zones, except for essential services, the rest of the movement and activities will be restricted. Cases will be actively monitored and surveyed by special teams in the Containment Zone as per sampling criteria. In these zones, the samples will be collected and tested. In addition to this, testing for any cases of ILI (Influenza like Illness) and SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Illness) with proper orientation of all health facilities will be undertaken for the buffer zones.

Special teams are to be setup to trace all contacts as well as conduct house to house surveys. These teams will include the health staff, local revenue staff, corporation staff, Red Cross, NSS, NYK and other volunteers.

Districts were also told to classify hospitals as:

• COVID Care Centres for mild cases or very mild cases,
• COVID Health Centres for clinical moderate cases requiring oxygen support and
• COVID Dedicated Hospitals for severe & critical cases with ventilator support.

States & Districts have been specifically asked to focus on clinical management for positive confirmed COVID patients. In collaboration with AIIMS Call Centers, clinical management of every patient shall be monitored daily at the district level by them. Besides the pharmaceutical interventions, the Districts have been asked to promote social distancing, etiquettes of handwashing & sanitary measures even in non-pharmaceutical interventions.

The districts which have not reported any cases yet, have also been directed to work on cluster containment plans. In order to break the chain of transmission, focus needs to be on contact tracing, monitoring and clinical management. States have been asked touniformly implement the containment plan in every district across the country.

The online training material available on the iGOT platform will support the capacity building of the staff working on COVID-19. States are asked to take its support.