Nationwide mock Covid-19 drill on April 10-11: Center.

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Nationwide mock Covid-19 drill on April 10-11: Center

    Mock drills involving both public and private hospitals will be conducted across India on April 10 and 11 to assess emergency response for handling Covid-19 cases, the government confirmed and stressed the need for maintaining optimum testing to identify emergence of new clusters,if any.

   The decision comes amid a gradual but sustained increase in trajectory of Covid-19 cases since mid February.

   An advisory issued to states/UTs jointly by Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan and ICMR director general Rajiv Bahl stated that most of the active Covid-19 cases in the country are largely being reported by a few states like Kerala (20%), Gujarat (11%), Karnataka (9%) and Tamil Nadu(6%).

    "While the rates of hospitalization and death due to the disease remain low, largely because of the significant coverage achieved in terms of Covid-19 vaccination in all states/UTs,this gradual increase in cases needs reinvigorated public health actions to contain the surge," the advisory started.

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        It added that there will be a virtual meeting with states on Monday to discuss the details of the mock drill, needed to take a stock of hospital preparedness, including drugs, beds, medical equipment, medical oxygen, capacity building of human resources on existing guidelines as well as vaccination coverage.

   

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On December 27 last year,a mock drill was conducted to assess the preparedness of hospitals to deal with a potential surge in Covid cases.Nearly 20,000 hospitals took part in it.

     Data collected from the drill showed there were 3.37 lakh isolation beds available across the states/UTs, of which 2.79 lakh were functional.The number of oxygen -supported beds,ICU and ICU-cum ventilator beds that we're found to be functional in the drill stood at 2.45 lakh,64,77 and 49,236, respectively.

   In terms of human resources to manage Covid-19 the drill found 1.77 lakh doctors,3.21 lakh nurses,1.66 lakh parmenides and 15,645 Ayush practitioners.

    In the past three years of dealing with Covid, India has made important changes in its health infrastructure and pandemic management that will pay dividends in the future as well,the Union health secretary said.