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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed the need for ramping up the speed of vaccination, testing and augmentation of the health care resources to effectively deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
He has also emphasised on the implementation of the localised containment strategies and the proper distribution of oxygen supply in the rural areas.
The Prime Minister today chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the COVID and vaccination related situation in the country.
During the meeting, officials gave detailed presentations on the state and district-level situation, testing capacities, availability of oxygen, health care infrastructure and vaccination roadmap.
Mr. Modi said that localised containment strategies are the need of the hour especially in those states wherein test positivity rate is high.
The Prime Minister has instructed to scale up the testing with use of RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Tests in such areas.
He said, the states should be encouraged to report their COVID cases in a transparent manner.
The Prime Minister asked for augmentation of health care resources in rural areas by adopting door to door testing and surveillance strategies.
He also spoke about empowering ASHA and Anganwadi workers with all necessary tools.
Mr. Modi also stressed on providing the guidelines in easy language for home isolation and treatment in rural areas.
The Prime Minister directed that a distribution plan for ensuring oxygen supply in rural areas should be worked out.
He added that necessary training must be provided to health workers in the operation of medical equipment.
He asked to ensure power supply for smooth operation of such medical devices.
The Prime Minister took serious note of some of the reports about ventilators lying unutilized in storage in some states.
He directed that an immediate audit of installation and operation of ventilators provided by the Central Government should be carried out.
Mr. Modi said that India’s fight against COVID has been guided throughout by the scientists and subject experts.
The Prime Minister was briefed that testing has gone up rapidly in the country from around 50 lakh tests per week in early March to around 1.3 crore tests per week now.
Officials informed the Prime Minister about the gradually decreasing test positivity rate and increasing recovery rate in the various parts of the country.
They also briefed the Prime Minister about the vaccination process and the state-wise coverage of the eligible population.
The roadmap for future vaccine availability was also discussed during the meeting.
Mr. Modi directed officials to work closely with states to ramp up the speed of vaccination.
