Andhra Pradesh CM holds Covid-19 review meeting; directs officials to prepare for possible third wave

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday held a review meeting on the prevailing COVID situation and vaccination in the state and directed the officials to make preparations for the possible Covid-19 third wave.

Instructing the officials to take steps to start PG courses in new medical colleges, the chief minister told them to introduce courses on public health administration and ensure training for paramedical staff in colleges.

The Chief Minister has directed the officials to focus on bringing down the infant mortality rate and prepare best guidelines for Family Health Doctors concept.

He directed them to continuously observe and monitor public health and added that testing facilities should be available at the village clinic level and dialysis units should be made available at community health centres.

Reddy further instructed the officials to maintain the data of testing or treatment of anyone in the state and come up with software to upload it online with the person's identification details for the doctors' reference.

He asked the officials to focus on new modalities for containing COVID in view of possible third wave and be prepared with new medicines that give better results with fewer side effects.

As per the information shared by the officials with the chief minister, there are 14,452 active Covid-19 cases across the state with a recovery rate of 98.60 per cent. The state reported zero active cases in 10,494 secretariats and 3,560 patients are being treated in hospitals, 926 in COVID care centres and 9,966 people are in home isolation.

The officials further informed that 92.50 per cent of Covid-19 patients in network hospitals and 70.69 per cent of patients in private hospitals are being treated under the state health scheme Aarogyasri.

As many as 20,964 oxygen concentrators and 27,311 D type oxygen cylinders are available and oxygen pipeline work for 108 hospitals has been completed, added the officials.

The officials said that the work of setting up oxygen plants in 140 hospitals with more than 50 beds will be completed by October 6. Speaking on the vaccination drive in the state, the officials told the chief minister that 2,23,34,971 vaccines have been administered in the state out of which 1,31,62,815 people have received a single dose while the rest 91,72,156 have been fully vaccinated.

Deputy Chief Minister Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas, Chief Secretary Adityanath Das, COVID Command Control Chairperson Dr KS Jawahar Reddy and others were also present in the meeting.

( With inputs from ANI )