Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has deployed high level multi-disciplinary Central teams to 15 States/UTs with more than 50 districts/municipal bodies that are witnessing high case load and high spurt of cases to assist the State Governments by providing technical support for containment and facilitate management of COVID-19 outbreak. These States/UTs are: Maharashtra (7 districts/municipalities), Telangana (4), Tamil Nadu (7), Rajasthan (5), Assam (6), Haryana (4), Gujarat (3), Karnataka (4), Uttarakhand (3), Madhya Pradesh (5), West Bengal (3), Delhi (3), Bihar (4), Uttar Pradesh (4), and Odisha (5).

The three-member teams are composed of two public health experts/epidemiologists/clinicians and a senior Joint Secretary level nodal officer for administrative handholding and improving governance. These teams are working in the field and visiting health care facilities to support the State health department in implementation of containment measures and efficient treatment/clinical management of cases within the districts/cities.

In order to ensure better coordination, quick action on the ground, adoption of a more granular strategy, it is proposed that these districts/municipalities should regularly remain in touch with central teams which are already coordinating with the States. Such frequent interaction would further strengthen the surveillance, containment, testing and treatment related action on the ground.

The central teams are assisting the States/UTs in addressing some of the challenges faced by the State/UT authorities such testing bottlenecks, low tests/per million population,, high confirmation rates, high testing confirmation rate, risk of capacity shortfall over the next two months, potential bed shortage, growing Case Fatality Rate, high doubling rate, sudden spike in active cases, etc.

Many districts/municipalities have already formalised a dedicated Core Team at the district level comprising of district level medical and administrative officials to coordinate over regular basis with the Central Team.

Meanwhile, Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan today chaired the 16th high level Group of Minister, GoM meeting at New Delhi to review, monitor and evaluate the evolving situation on COVID-19. In the meeting, a presentation on the ground situation as well as the latest statistics with respect to corona virus was also made.

The GoM was attended by Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, Minister of State for Shipping, Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey.

In another news update, Indian Air Force has designed, developed and manufactured an Airborne Rescue Pod for Isolated Transportation (ARPIT).This pod will be utilised for evacuation of critical patients with infectious diseases including COVID-19 from high altitude area, isolated and remote places.

Requirement of an air evacuation system with facility to prevent spread of infectious aerosol from a COVID-19 patient during air travel was felt by IAF when COVID-19 was declared as a pandemic.

This indigenously designed system has been developed at a cost of Rs. 60,000 only, which is very less as compared to the imported systems costing up to Sixty Lakh.

The system has been developed as a lightweight isolation system made from aviation certified material.

The ARPIT Design requirements have been evolved and are based on the guidelines issued by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) and Centre for Disease Control (CDC), USA.