Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala has made arrangements to treat around 50,000 COVID-19 patients at a time, doubling the first line treatment centres to 56 as it battles the third wave of the infections that has pushed the active cases to over 7,000 in the last over two months.
State Health Minister K K Shailaja said experts have forecast a surge in the number of cases next month but sounded confident that the government can manage any such situation with the measures being taken by it.
After successfully containing the spread of the infections since it reported the country's first COVID-19 case in January, the southern state has been witnessing a sharp increase in fresh cases since May with thousands of people returning from overseas and other parts of the country.
Though the caseload is still lower compared to neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the state is gearing up for any contingency and has ramped up the COVID care infrastructure by adding more first line treatment centres (FLTCs) besides deciding to recruit temporary staff for them so that it can treat up to 50,000 patients at a time.
"We already have two COVID hospitals in each district.
Then as the number increased, we opened one FLTC for each COVID hospital. Thus we already have 28 FLTCs. Now we have given direction to increase the number to 56. That is one COVID hospital will have two FLTCs," Shailaja said.
She also said the government had already given directions to open in each of the 941 panchayats at least one FLTC where a special medical team would take care of asymptomatic and less complicated patients. Some FLTCs have up to 500 beds and at least 2,000 people can be accommodated in each of the 14 districts in the state.