AMN
Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan today chaired the 15th meeting of Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 in New Delhi. During the meeting, the GoM had in depth deliberation on containment strategy and management aspects of COVID-19, as well as the measures being taken by Centre and various states.
The GoM was informed that Domestic manufacturers have reached the production capacity of nearly 3 lakh PPEs per day and about 3 lakh N-95 masks per day which is sufficient to meet the requirement of the country in the near future.
Also, over 18 thousand ventilators are now available to combat COVID. Centre has also provided 84.22 lakh N95 masks and 47.98 lakh PPEs to state, union territories and central institutions. As on today, a total of 8,694 facilities comprising of 919 dedicated COVID hospitals, 2,036 COVID Health Centres and 5,739 COVID Care Centres are available.
The GoM was also informed that there are 30 municipal areas which constitue 79 percent of India’s case load. It discussed that focus of COVID-19 management strategy needs to be on the states with highest number of confirmed cases and highest number of fatalities, and on treatment and case fatality management.
GOM also discussed the challenges before various states and union territories arising from the returning migrant labourers and the returnees from abroad. External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai were among those who attended the meeting.