Health minister urges doctors to counter misinformation around Covid-19

A day before the scheduled nationwide dry-run on Covid-fighting preparedness, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya interacted with nearly 100 doctors and members of the Indian Medical Association, urging the medical professionals to counter misinformation campaigns by sharing accurate facts.

“Due to the recent increase in Covid-19 cases globally, it becomes the responsibility of our experts to share correct information so that rumours, misconceptions and in turn, fears can be prevented,” the minister said, noting that any sense of panic among the citizens could be countered by accurate data.

While China and several other countries witness a massive surge in the Covid-19 cases since the past six weeks, India’s caseload is on a downward trajectory with experts ruling out any possibility of a surge in India by the BF-7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 unlike China, because of the immunity that a majority of the Indian population is believed to have acquired in the last two and half years.

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The government, however, without taking any chance started random screening at the airports, made pre-boarding RT-PCR test mandatory for passengers travelling from China and a few other Asian nations, and would carry out a country-wide auditing exercises in hospitals on Tuesday to assess if they remain capable of handling a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases.

The dry-run will focus on availability of health facilities (covering all districts), capacity of isolation beds, oxygen-supported beds, ICU beds and ventilator-supported beds, and availability of doctors, nurses, paramedics, AYUSH doctors, and other front line workers, including ASHA and Anganwadi workers.

The dry-run will also evaluate operation of oxygen producing PSA plants, availability of medical oxygen as well as advanced and basic life support (ALS/BLS) ambulances, testing equipment and reagents and that of essential drugs.

“All state health ministers will take part in the mock drill at their level. Such exercises would help our operational readiness and help in filling gaps,” Mandaviya said.