The Pune district administration has embarked on a multi-pronged strategy to tackle the spread of novel coronavirus in the city, Pimpri-Chinchwad and in the rural areas of the district, have been witnessing an increase of an average 100 COVID-19 cases daily since the beginning of the month.
Ayush Prasad, chief executive officer (CEO), Pune Zilla Parishad, told The Hindu that the ZP was going to hire an additional 1,385 medical and paramedical personnel to strengthen the 600 staff already engaged by them.
“This new hiring is to prepare ourselves for the next wave of spikes. For the better part of the last four months, the spread of the disease in rural areas was kept in check, until the last three weeks. One must bear in mind that this surge is also because more people in the rural areas are getting themselves tested in private facilities,” Mr. Prasad said.
He said in the third week of May, when the total case tally in the rural areas of the district had touched 100, a directive had been issued to map villages and their primary health centres (PHCs) with COVID-19 care centres (CCCs), dedicated COVID health centres (DCHC) and COVID-19 hospitals throughout the district.
“Patients from the gram panchayats are supposed to go to CCCs, as a first point of admission. Depending on severity of symptoms, patients would be admitted there or sent to the mapped DCHC or the identified COVID hospital in the district. This has been working well, except in some cases where patients have got themselves tested at a private lab and then attempted to get admitted to a hospital even if they were ‘asymptomatic’. We have now begun to take steps to make the system better,” Mr. Prasad said.
He said that in 36 identified gram panchayats with a high case load, the administration will station one ambulance per gram panchayat for the movement of patients. Presently, the ZP has five ambulances per taluka which are mostly stationed at the CCCs.
“The district collector will be issuing strict guidelines to private labs to share their test data with local authorities. Also, separate nodal officers at the village level would henceforth be appointed for contact tracing. This task was hitherto being performed only by PHC medical officers, supported by gram panchayats,” said Mr. Prasad.
1,000 new cases
Meanwhile, Pune district reported a staggering surge of more than 1,000 new cases till Wednesday evening with 1,016 cases, taking the total case tally to 31,994.
Of these, 11,751 are active cases, of whom 450 are critical. As many as 19,319 persons have been discharged so far, said Pune Divisional Commissioner Dr. Deepak Mhaisekar. With five new fatalities, Pune’s total death toll has shot to 924.
In Pimpri-Chinchwad, 27 police personnel were among those who tested positive, said sources.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Solapur district — the worst affected after Pune in the division — has climbed to 309 with five new fatalities reported on Wednesday.
The death toll in Pune division — which includes Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur districts — has now reached 1,321.
Satara reported a further five deaths to take its toll to 60, while with 46 new cases its total tally rose to 1,418, with 499 active cases.
Solapur reported 68 new cases on Wednesday, taking its tally to 3,439, of whom 1,259 are active.
Dr. Mhaisekar said that Pune division’s tally had reached 38,411, of whom 14,002 are active cases while 23,088 people have been discharged till date.
Sangli reported 12 new cases to take its tally to 532, with 242 active cases, while with a sharp spike of 45 new cases, Kolhapur’s tally stands at 1,028 of whom 251 are active.
While Sangli has reported 13 fatalities thus far, Kolhapur has reported 15 deaths till now.
