PUDUCHERRY: Hospital beds will not be a problem in Puducherry even if the COVID-19 cases increases to a great extent, Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao said here on Friday.
Puducherry has a lot of hospitals in the government sector. Besides there are seven private medical colleges as well, Minister said briefing newsmen.
Spurt in cases is due to contacts. Only one or two percent are new cases, the Minister said adding that all the remaining are contact cases.
If the infected persons provides proper information , the contact tracing can be done very well and new cases be prevented.
Unfortunately people were not providing all information on their movements to trace their contacts, which is resulting in new cases, he said.
The team of Health, Revenue and police alone cannot prevent the spread of the disease without the cooperation of the people and appealed people to provide information, maintain social distancing and hand sanitization.
Health Secretary said stressed the need for downloading the Aarogya Sethu app along with social distancing, masks and hand sanitizing to halt the spurt of the virus.
Number of cases growing very fast, he said and appealed to people to be very careful, otherwise in one month Puducherry could be in very deep trouble.
Puducherry has one of the best hospital infrastructure, but unless there is control, the curve cannot be flattened, he said.
Meanwhile One person aged 82 from Mannadipet died of COVID-19, while six persons tested positive for the virus on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 163.
Among the six new cases , five are in Puducherry, one in Karaikal. Another Puducherry person who returned from abroad to Chennai also tested positive.
Among the cases in Puducherry one from Bahur, one Sultanpet , Murungapakkam, Kamaraj Nagar .and a woman who returned to Karaikal from Chennai.
After the discharge of 10 patients following cure, the active cases stood at 84, with 79 in Puducherry, one in Karaikal, four in Mage and one each in Chennai and Delhi.