As part of its holistic response and management strategy for COVID-19, the Centre remains committed to reducing the case fatality rate by ensuring effective clinical management of all COVID-19 positive patients. For this purpose, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare has now involved specialist doctors from AIIMS, New Delhi to provide expert guidance and knowledge support to doctors manning ICUs in State hospitals.

Tele-consultation is a critical component of the clinical intervention protocol for COVID-19. A specialist team of doctors from AIIMS, New Delhi shall provide guidance on effective clinical management of COVID-19 patients in the ICUs of different State hospitals through tele/video consultation. They will handhold the States in clinical management of COVID-19 patients to reduce the case fatality rate. These tele-consultation sessions for providing timely and expert guidance to the doctors in the States shall be conducted twice every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The first session of this exercise shall begin today at 4.30 pm. Ten hospitals have been selected, including nine from Mumbai (Maharashtra) and one from Goa. These are NESCO Jumbo Facility, P South (Phase II); CIDCO Mulund Jumbo Facility – T (Phase II); Malad Infiniti Mall Jumbo Facility, PN (Phase III); Jio Convention Centre Jumbo Facility, HE (Phase III); Nair Hospital; MCGM Seven Hills; MMRDA BKC Jumbo Facility, HE (Phase II); MMRDA BKC Jumbo Facility, HE (Phase I); Mumbai Metro Dahisar Jumbo Facility, T (Phase II); and Govt Medical College and Hospital, Panaji, Goa.

They have more than 1000 beds for COVID patients including isolation beds, oxygen supported and ICU beds. Today’s session will be led by Dr. Anand Mohan, HOD, Pulmonary Medicine, AIIMS, Delhi.

This teleconsultation exercise shall be extended to another 61 hospitals which have bed capacity ranging from 500-1000 on twice a week basis. A calendar of these expert-led teleconsultation sessions has been drawn up to cover the States till 31st July. A total of 17 such States shall be covered (Delhi, Gujarat, Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand and Maharashtra). Up to two doctors handling ICU patients from each hospital along with the Director-General of Health Services (DGHS) of the concerned State will participate in the VC interaction.

Meanwhile, the number of samples being tested for the detection of COVID-19 is substantially growing every day. During the last 24 hours, 2,62,679 samples have been tested of which more than 53,000 samples have been tested in private labs. The cumulative number of samples tested, as of now is 1,04,73,771. As a result, the tests per million today stand at 7180. This is because of the sharply focussed “Test, Trace, Treat” strategy of the central Government, in coordination with the States/UTs.

A crucial component in the appreciable growth in COVID-19 testing is the increased number of diagnostic labs across the country. With 795 labs in the government sector and 324 private labs, there are as many as 1119 labs in the country. These include:

• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 600 (Govt: 372 + Private: 228)

• TrueNat based testing labs: 426 (Govt: 390 + Private: 36)

• CBNAAT based testing labs: 93 (Govt: 33 + Private: 60)

Growing healthcare infrastructure of various types of COVID facilities adequately supported by ICU and oxygen supported beds, ventilators and other equipment has facilitated and ensured timely detection and effective clinical management of COVID-19 positive cases. With more COVID-19 patients recovering, the gap between the number of recovered cases and active cases has increased by 1,91,886 as on date. During the last 24 hours, a total of 16,883 COVID-19 patients have been cured, taking the cumulative figure of recovered cases to 4,56,830 so far.

The rate of recovery among COVID-19 patients continues to increase over the days. It has touched 61.53% today.