India calls for readiness of hospitals to fight Covid

New Delhi: Amid rising cases of coronavirus across the country, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, P.K. Mishra, on Wednesday undertook a review meeting to oversee the level of preparedness and public health response to it.

According to sources, Mishra advised officials to ensure operational readiness of hospital infrastructure till the sub-district level.

He also highlighted the need to examine the Covid-19 situation regularly and update advisories to guide the states.

Mishra also exhorted continuation of the ongoing time-tested strategy of Test-Track-Treat-Vaccination and adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour among the people.

A presentation was made by Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan during the meeting, where he provided an overview of the global Covid-19 situation.

He highlighted that India has been witnessing a rapid increase in the number of Covid-19 cases with the majority of cases being reported in eight states, namely Kerala, Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Rajasthan.

The Health Secretary further said that states have already been advised that they may take steps for procurement of the requisite Covid vaccine doses directly from the manufacturers at their end without any prior approvals from the Union Health Ministry.

Private hospitals in the states may also directly procure such vaccines from the manufacturer, it was informed during the meeting.

These vaccines once procured may be administered as per the existing Covid vaccination guidelines.

Dedicated hospitals

With 1,100 new cases of Covid-19, the Maharashtra government has started 25 dedicated hospitals for the patients with all other arrangements to treat critical cases, Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan said here on Wednesday.

The minister has directed that all medical, paramedical and support staffers working in medical colleges and hospitals wear face masks to avoid infections, and people at large too as a precaution, akin to similar directions of the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation.

He said that the state government has more than 5,000 Covid beds, 2,000 ventilators, 62 liquid medical oxygen tanks, 37 PSA Plants, 2,000 jumbo and 6,000 small oxygen cylinders ready for any eventuality.

Indian diet

Indian diet rich in iron, zinc, and fibre, regular consumption of tea, and use of turmeric in meals lowered severity and death due to Covid in the country, according to a study published in the April edition of the Indian Journal of Medical Research by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the death rate was reportedly 5-8 fold lower in India which is densely populated as compared to lesser-populated western countries.

The study, conducted by an international team of scientists including from India, Brazil, Jordan, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia, aimed to investigate whether dietary habits were associated with the variations in Covid-19 severity and deaths between Western and Indian population.

“Our results suggest that Indian food components suppress cytokine storm and various other severity-related pathways of Covid-19 and may have a role in lowering severity and death rates from Covid-19 in India as compared to western populations,” said the researchers including from Centre for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology at Institute of Integrative Omics & Applied Biotechnology, in West Bengal, and Policy Centre for Biomedical Research at Translational Health Science & Technology Institute in Haryana.

“However, large multi-centered case-control studies are required to support our current findings,” they added.

The findings showed that the components of Indian diets, which maintain high iron and zinc concentrations in blood and rich fibre in foods, played a role in preventing carbon dioxide (CO2) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-mediated Covid-19 severity.