Corona Second Wave Likely To Subside By End Of June In Telangana

Dr G. Srinivasa Rao, Director of  Telangana State Public Health Department, said that the state is slowly on the path of recovery from the corona second wave. At present, the COVID-19 positivity rate in the state is 4.1 per cent. As per the World Health Organization (WHO) the situation is deemed under control if the positivity is less than 5 percent. Besides, the cases are estimated to subside significantly in another week. This is expected to bring down the number of severe cases, thereby decreasing the load on hospitals. He also expressed confidence that the second wave was likely to subside by the end of June.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, along with Ramesh Reddy, Director of the Medical Education department here, he said that as per Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s orders that no one should be denied  COVID test, Dr Srinivasa Rao said they will increase the tests to 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh daily in a few days.

Fever Survey

'' We are conducting field surveys to assess the prevalence of Coronavirus in the state. As part of the out-patient (OP) survey, 13.05 lakh OPs were examined in 1,518 centres across 33 districts in the State, and out of these 2,78,502 were found to have symptoms. Corona kits were distributed to 2,57,277 people. In the first round of the Field Fever Survey, 33,374 teams were deployed and 1,01,28,711 houses were re-surveyed. We have distributed 2,18,698 medicine kits after identifying 2,41,103 people with COVID symptoms. In the latest second round, 17,089 teams visited 46,70,358 homes. Of the 1,57,963 people identified as having symptoms  we have distributed  93,129 kits to them,'' he said.

Vaccination drive

 As part of the vaccination drive, the Srinivasa Rao said that the government has a strategy in place where we first identify those in the high-risk (super-spreaders) category and vaccinate them. We have also recognized journalists in the state as frontline warriors. They will be vaccinated from May 27th to 28th of this month, by the Department of Communications.

Those identified as super-spreaders will be vaccinated for three days from the 28th to the 30th of this month. Cab drivers and auto drivers will be vaccinated by GHMC. By the end of this month, 3 lakh people will have to be given the second dose of Covaxin, he said.

There are currently 250 private vaccination centres in the state and we are planning to increase them to 1,200.

So far 56 lakh vaccines have been distributed across the state. At present, 6.18 lakh vials of Covishield and 2.5 lakh vials of Covaxin doses are available. Another 2.5 lakh doses will reach the State in the first week of June.

Till last week there were 53 thousand beds in the state and now we have increased them to 55,120. As of now, 31,375 beds are vacant. Of the 23,745 patients taking treatment in hospitals, 40 per cent are from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. Out of the total  4,589 beds available, 612 ICU beds are for government hospitals and 3,977 beds for private  hospitals. Out of the 9,718 Oxygen beds available, 2,750 are government-run beds and 6,968 are vacant in the private sector. '

Focus on Post-COVID complications

District Medical and Education Director Dr Ramesh Reddy said some of those who recovered from Covid were likely to have other health problems. He said the health condition of such people would be monitored in government hospitals. The Govt is focussing on these cases and OP services will be provided specifically for these people. He also spoke about the rise in the cases of ‘black fungus’. Koti ENT Hospital currently has more than 240 black fungus cases. We are performing operations on 20 people per day and we are also planning to extend this treatment at Medical Colleges, Ramesh Reddy said.  

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