Chhattisgarh is becoming one of the COVID-19 hotspots of the country. AIR Raipur correspondent reports that Corona positive cases have been steadily increasing in Chhattisgarh with a four fold surge during the last one month. Active cases have increased by seven times as compare to the data of 30 days back. At present the active cases in the state is about 52 per cent of the total cases. Per day increase in the cases is ten times higher as compared to last month.

While reviewing the situation, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said that increasing number of COVID positive cases has made an environment of fear among common people, especially among the patients. He said that it is the need of the hour to boost the morale of the patients undergoing treatment in the hospitals and to regain their confidence in the system. Chhattisgarh Government has decided to prescribe home isolation to the COVID patients with few or no symptoms. Besides, people who have come in contact with COVID positive patient should also be provided the prophylactic drug kits along with Standard Operating Procedures.

The state government has fixed the cost of COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals. It has also been decided to provide online medical consultancy to COVID-19 patients who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and are undergoing treatment at home, at Rs Two thousand five hundred for ten days.

Meanwhile, aggressive and widespread TESTING has essayed an important role in India’s fight against the COVID pandemic. India has scaled another peak- the cumulative tests have surpassed 5 crore today.India has come a long way from conducting just one test from the lab at National Institute of Virology, Pune in January 2020 to 5,06,50,128 today. 10,98,621 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours testifying the enlarged testing capacity in the country.

The average daily tests conducted (week wise) are demonstrating a consistent increase. This has registered a 3.2 times expansion from third week of July (3,26,971) to first week of September (10,46,470).In its Guidance Note on “Public Health Criteria to Adjust Public Health and Social Measures in the Context of COVID-19”, WHO has advised countries to conduct 140 tests per day per million population for comprehensive surveillance for suspect cases. The average week-on-week data for India shows a rising improvement on this front.

Expanding network of diagnostic labs has given a boost to Tests per Million. The TPM have seen a sharp rise from 6396 on 1st of July to 36,703 as of today. The testing lab network in the country is continuously strengthened which as on today consists of 1668 labs in the country; 1035 labs in the government sector and 633 private labs. These include:

• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 846 (Govt: 467 + Private: 379)

• TrueNat based testing labs: 700 (Govt: 534 + Private: 166)

• CBNAAT based testing labs: 122 (Govt: 34 + Private: 88)