Members suggest immediate measures
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 28: A two-member Central Team of Experts comprising NITI Aayog Member (Health), Dr V K Paul and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) chief, Dr S K Singh, on its visit to Kashmir to take stock of the overall COVID situation in the Valley, today called on Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha here at the Raj Bhavan.
The meeting was also attended by Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor; BVR Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary; Atal Dulloo, Financial Commissioner, Health & Medical Education and Bhupinder Kumar, Mission Director, NHM J&K.
The two-member team held a detailed review of the situation emerging in the Valley due to COVID pandemic with all the district teams and tertiary care hospitals.
While briefing the Lt Governor about the on-ground assessment of the situation made by them, the members of the team lauded the UT Government’s COVID containment and mitigation measures in place and suggested supplementary measures to further augment them. They appreciated the J&K Government’s testing strategy, mandatory traveller screening, and Homecare model for positive asymptomatic patients. Testing strategy across the J&K is aggressive and robust and it has helped in containing the spread of the disease in the UT, they added.
In view of the impending winter season and sudden spike of positive cases in some districts of J&K, the team suggested a host of immediate measures including establishing 24×7 COVID Counseling Call Centres at Divisional levels with technical team; strengthening the Contact tracing mechanism with all contacts to be home quarantine until they test negative; Micro containment plan in cities with 100 % testing of all inhabitants with strict perimeter control; to strengthen the Referral system from peripheral hospitals to Tertiary care hospitals; involvement of PRI in rural areas for COVID control efforts; continuing the high testing trend and build on same and increasing High flow nasal cannula ( HFNC) inventory and keeping sufficient stock in stores.
Sinha observed that all the important suggestions and recommendations made by the Central team will play an important role in comprehensive and effective management of the COVID-19 situation in J&K.
He called for heightened awareness to keep the infection low and immediate capacity augmentation, besides utilization of every available resource to arrest the mortality rate.
He asked the health functionaries to formulate comprehensive future management and containment strategy of COVID-19 pandemic in J&K. He stressed on carrying out intensive surveillance and testing, particularly in Red zones, and inviting renewed participation of PRIs, religious leaders and other distinguished personalities to spread awareness.
He called for sustained efforts from all the stakeholders for effectively combating the spread of COVID-19. Strict compliance of all healthcare protocols and SOPs notified by the Central and the UT Government must be ensured to mitigate the threat of the deadly virus, he maintained.
The Lt Governor laid special emphasis on ensuring 100% coverage of Aarogya Setu app and asked for its integration with ITIHAS system, to improve contact tracing and surveillance of positive cases and its geo-mapping must be done to predict hotspots.
He also directed for putting in place a robust mechanism and taking all requisite measures to ensure the safety of frontline COVID warriors including Doctors, paramedics, medical professionals and security forces who are also at the high risk of catching the infection.
The team acknowledged that J&K has a vigorous three dimensional COVID containment strategy that is primary preventive, containment, and surveillance to arrest spread and management for reducing the mortality rate, which is playing an important role in effectively dealing with the COVID pandemic.
Various valuable suggestions were made during the meeting including setting up 24×7 Tele Medicine / e-Support Centres for providing support of senior Doctors, Clinicians and Community Medicine Professionals to the frontline medical professional working on ground; a similar, e-support system of medical professionals and psychologists for home care patients to avoid any mental and psychological fatigue to overcome the disease; improving the Ambulance response time for its immediate availability in rural and urban areas.
Suggestions were also made for providing continuous support to district teams from Medical professionals such as Medical College Clinicians and Community Medicine Professionals for their handholding and better scientific management of COVID-19 situation in the districts.
The team also suggested for evolving scientific learning community, wherein each Medical College including SKIMS can provide necessary scientific handholding to a minimum of three districts with a constant flow of scientific information that would also prove to be helpful in mortality management.
For rural areas, suggestions were made for devising an institutionalized mechanism like Village Monitoring Committees including PRIs, Anganwadi workers and others for tracking incoming travellers and positives cases. Strengthening of IEC measures and revamping ICUs and utilization of the available resources to their full capacity was also suggested.
Earlier, Member, NITI AYOG, Government of India, Dr Vinod Kumar Paul, along with Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) New Delhi, Dr S K Singh, today chaired a meeting at Civil Secretariat regarding control measures being implemented by the administration to prevent Covid-19 virus in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education, Atal Dulloo, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Managing Director, NHM, Bhupinder Kumar, Managing Director, JKMSCL, Dr Yashpal Sharma, Director SKIMS Soura Srinagar, Principal GMC Srinagar, Director Health Services Kashmir and other senior officers of concerned departments were present in the meeting.
All the Deputy Commissioners of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory along with respective stakeholders attended the meeting through video conferencing from their respective headquarters and explained about the steps being taken up to control the pandemic besides day-to-day details of COVID patients, quarantine centres and Corona hospitals.
While reviewing the strategies and parameters followed by the health and districts administration to control COVID-19, the Member stressed upon the Deputy Commissioners to evolve an effective containment strategy for early detection of COVID cases for controlling the spread of corona virus.
They complimented J&K administration for 100 per cent testing of travelers who enter the Union Territory saying that the strategy could be followed by other States and UTs as model testing for travelers.
The Member and Director stressed upon the Deputy Commissioners to redesign red and containment zones so that spreading of infections of disease to other areas could be prevented. They asked them to take necessary steps to adopt rural strategy to control the infections in villages to contain the virus spread.
Dr Paul and Dr. Singh stressed upon the concerned authorities that the target to be set up for at least 15 people who contacted with any Covid positive patient should be tested in order to control the epidemic and help break the chain. They stressed upon them for strengthening of district level teams who deal with controlling the spread of corona virus outbreak besides asking them to take up the COVID cases of security forces with their concerned officers for timely treatment.
Meanwhile, the Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education presented Coffee Table Book to the Member and Director as memento.
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