Coronavirus | Health Minister promises India-made RT-PCR testing kits by May-end

Data from the State Health Departments put the nationwide death toll at 1007 and the total number of cases at 31,365, with 22,803 active ones. Gujarat reported 226 new positive cases, with Ahmedabad alone accounting for 164 in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of the affected people in the State to 3,774, a Health Department official said. Stating that India is tackling COVID-19 through a graded, pro-active and pre-emptive response strategy, he noted that the Ministry had issued guidelines on home isolation for very mild/pre-symptomatic patients. It has also written to the States about reports of private hospitals hesitating to provide critical care to regular patients needing dialysis, blood transfusion, chemotherapy and institutional deliveries on account of the fear of contracting COVID; many are also keeping their premises closed. The Ministry said that across India there have been some instances of hospitals having closed down as few health care workers working there turned out to be positive for COVID-19. “Also some non-COVID health facilities have reported confirmation of COVID-19, in patients admitted for unrelated/non-respiratory illness, causing undue apprehension among healthcare workers, sometimes leading to impaired functionality of such hospitals,’’ it said. “Staff HCF can be divided into groups to work on rotation basis every 14 days and a group of back up staff which is pooled in case some high risk exposure with suspected COVID-19 infection is detected,” it has suggested. In such a scenario, the entire healthcare workers of the facility should be oriented in infection prevention and control practices and other protocols. Subscription Benefits Include Today's Paper Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list. *Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print.