Identify and earmark hospitals to deal with COVID-19 cases: Centre to states

New Delhi: Scaling up the fight against coronavirus, the Centre has directed states to identify hospitals that can be dedicated for COVID-19 patients only and to enforce the social distancing guidelines effectively as it reduces 62 per cent transmission.

While talking to reporters, joint secretary Lav Aggrawal said, "We have asked states to make dedicated hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. As per the information that we have, the work has started in the states of Gujarat, Assam, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.

While stressing on importance of social distancing, ICMR official Raman Gangakhedkar said, "At present social distancing is very important. We can reduce about 62 per cent of COVID-19 transmission just by following social distancing."

"The deadly virus gets transmitted from an infected person to healthy one by getting in contact. So breaking the chain of transmission is a must," Gangakhedkar said, adding the ICMR has strengthened its testing capacity which has rose to 12,000 samples in a day in 118 functional labs across the country. "At present, we are getting about 1,300 samples in a day. We have also roped 22 private lab chains with the capacity of 15,500 samples collection centres," he said, adding that the ICMTR has approved three firms for testing kit manufacturing and one of them is a domestic manufacturer.

Clearing the doubts over the usage of hydroxychloroquine, the ICMR official said, "This drug is being allowed to use on experimental basis only. It's not for public consumption as we are using it for healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients and relatives of infected person who are in direct contact with patients at home."

"As there are side effects of this drug, so we have allowed it for only two cases that after the approval of doctor. I request you all to not take this medicine of your own. We ourselves will announce about it if our experiment is successful," he said.

Meanwhile, in a letter to all chief secretaries of states, the Cabinet Secretary has asked them to establish medical facilities such as hospitals, clinical labs, isolation wards and expanding and upgrading existing facilities to combat the COVID-19 challenge.