The country currently is registering a recovery rate of 23.3%, the Health Ministry said.

India has reported 1,594 new cases and 51 new deaths related to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 29,974. This includes 22,010 active cases, 7027 discharged and migration and 937 deaths. 140 cases are assigned to States for contact tracing.

The country currently is registering a recovery rate of 23.3%, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

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Rising doubling rate

“For the last 14 days, our doubling rate is 8.7, while for the last 7 days, it is 10.2 days. In the last three days, it is 10.9 days roughly,” Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said at an interaction with directors/ heads of Department of Bio-Technology, through video-conferencing. He added that no fresh case had been reported in 80 districts in last 7 days and 17 districts had no case in 28 days. “In 47 districts, no case has been reported in the last 14 days, while 39 districts have not reported a case since the last 21 days,” he said.

Data from the State Health Departments put the nationwide death toll at 1007 and the total number of cases at 31,365, with 22,803 active ones. Maharahstra continued to report the maximum number with over 8,500 active cases.

Gujarat reported 226 new positive cases, with Ahmedabad alone accounting for 164 in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of the affected people in the State to 3,774, a Health Department official said. Ahmedabad reported its highest single-day fatalities with 19 deaths, taking the overall death toll in the State to 181.

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The Health Minister has said that India will be able to produce RT-PCR and antibody test kits by May-end.

Production soon

“All processes are in an advanced stage and production will start after getting approval from ICMR. It will help us in meeting our target of 1 lakh tests per day by May 31. We have issued directions to expedite the development of anti-body detection kits, real-time PCR-based detection kits and vaccines for COVID-19 under ‘Make in India’,” Mr. Vardhan said.

Stating that India is tackling COVID-19 through a graded, pro-active and pre-emptive response strategy, he noted that the Ministry had issued guidelines on home isolation for very mild/pre-symptomatic patients. “Patients who have a requisite facility at their residence for self-isolation will have the option of home isolation. These guidelines are in addition to guidelines on appropriate management of suspect/confirmed case of COVID-19 issued by the Ministry earlier,” he added.

It has also written to the States about reports of private hospitals hesitating to provide critical care to regular patients needing dialysis, blood transfusion, chemotherapy and institutional deliveries on account of the fear of contracting COVID; many are also keeping their premises closed.

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“It is also noticed that in many places they are insisting on COVID-19 tests before providing services. The Ministry wants to insist that all health centres should remain open and cater to patients,” the Health Ministry said.

The Ministry said that across India there have been some instances of hospitals having closed down as few health care workers working there turned out to be positive for COVID-19.

“Also some non-COVID health facilities have reported confirmation of COVID-19, in patients admitted for unrelated/non-respiratory illness, causing undue apprehension among healthcare workers, sometimes leading to impaired functionality of such hospitals,’’ it said.

The Ministry has said guidelines have been issued that all health care facilities (HCF) have a staffing plan in place including a contingency plan for infection in staff and patients to maintain continuity of operations.

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“Staff HCF can be divided into groups to work on rotation basis every 14 days and a group of back up staff which is pooled in case some high risk exposure with suspected COVID-19 infection is detected,” it has suggested.

The Ministry has also noted that if the primary source of COVID-19 infection cannot be established and /or the hospital is still reporting large number of cases among patients and health care workers, a decision needs to be taken to convert the non-COVID health facility into a COVID health facility under intimation to the local health department. In such a scenario, the entire healthcare workers of the facility should be oriented in infection prevention and control practices and other protocols.