BENGALURU: Health Minister K Sudhakar on Thursday announced that the government is drawing up a slew of measures to combat the pandemic. Testing will be increased to 2.5 lakh tests per day, and Bengaluru will increase testing by 30,000.
The 5T strategy will be implemented again: Trace, Track, Test, Treat, Technology. The turnaround time of genomic sequencing results will be improved to 24-36 hours from the current two to three days, in addition to starting genome labs in Ballari and Hubballi. Each lab can process 1,875 samples at a time. “Eight essential Covid-19 drugs will be procured, if the current stock is not enough.
These include Enoxaparin injection, Methylprednisolone, Dexamethasone, Remdesivir, Tocilixumab, Amphotericin, IVIG and Posaconazole, the last of which we haven’t found enough in the market,” Sudhakar said. All ILI, SARI, high-risk and symptomatic people will be tested. Those coming from any state to Karnataka will need to show negative RT-PCR test report, irrespective of mode of transport. From the total beds, 30 per cent will be reserved for pediatric cases.
Tele-triaging and physical triaging will be done to determine if a patient requires home isolation, CCC or hospital. There are 84,000 medical and paramedical staff in the state, with 4,000 doctors appointed after the second wave. If there are five cases in an area in Bengaluru, a micro-containment zone will be formed and if it is 15 cases, a larger containment zone will be formed. So far, the capital has 219 small clusters and 48 large clusters. So far, hospitalisation has been low with little oxygen requirement.
State Covid-19 helpline: 14410
Bengaluru helpline: 1533