District Health officials urged to increase number of RT-PCR tests

Kolkata: With the number of Covid cases going up in various states, the health department in Bengal is taking up various preventive measures to check if there is any possibility of second wave.

The senior health officials held a meeting with the Chief Medical Officers of health (CMoHs) from the districts to discuss various issues to chalk out plans as how to tackle if there is any surge in the Covid cases in the state.

A number of issues were discussed in the meeting. Senior health officials urged the CMoHs to keep adequate arrangements in the government run health establishments under their jurisdictions to handle any situation.

The district health officials have been asked to reduce dependency on the private hospitals.

Adequate arrangements would be put in place in government hospitals so that infected patients can be taken to the nearest government hospitals if there is any surge in Covid cases.

According to sources, the health officials laid a stress on immunization of elderly citizens and also those patients having various comorbid issues. They are trying to protect the elderly citizens.

It may be mentioned here that there has been an overwhelming response among elderly citizens to receive vaccine.

Till Wednesday, the State government had so far conducted vaccinations on 28.53 lakh people out of which over 11.5 lakh were elderly people.

It is significant since the vaccination for elderly citizens begun in the state two weeks ago whereas the vaccination drive for the health workers started two months back.

The district health officials have been urged to increase in the number of RT-PCR tests. It was learnt that contract tracing has been given priority. In case of a patient is found positive with Covid, the health officials in the districts have to find out those who might have come in contact with the infected patient.

"We are giving utmost importance to vaccination of elderly people and patients having comorbid issues. More Covid tests will be performed to check any possible Covid wave. The department is preparing the list of elderly people and comorbid patients from those districts where the infection rate is comparatively higher," said a senior health official.

These people would be vaccinated on priority basis. More Covid vaccine centers would be done in the block level and panchayat," the senior health official added.