The rising number of COVID cases has made the Health department resume regular meetings to review the threat from the infectious disease and chart plans for containment and treatment.
Two days after holding a meeting with the heads of hospitals and senior officials from the Health department, Health Minister Eatala Rajender held another round of review meetings with the same batch of people and district medical and health officers on Saturday to take stock of the situation.
108 ambulances
Apart from a few new measures, some crucial steps that were implemented last year during the pandemic were reactivated such as providing space for isolation at municipality isolation centres in all districts, and allotting 32 ‘108 ambulances’ to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits to shift patients to hospitals.
Doctors and health teams would be available round-the-clock at isolation centres to monitor the health of patients. Mr. Rajender said that these centres would be opened soon. He said that people who opt for ambulance services would be shifted to a nearby hospital.
Also, the call centre that provided suggestions to COVID patients under home isolation would be reactivated.
New way of contact tracing
The Health department would adopt a new method to trace the contacts of COVID-19 patients. They would use a mobile application through which an SMS would be sent to the contacts of a person who tested positive, urging them to immediately undergo a test. However, it was not clear about how the Health department would get the phone number of the contacts.
