NEW DELHI: The number of confirmed novel coronavirus patients in India has now reached 10,363 with a whopping 1,211 fresh cases registered, the highest in a day, in the last 24 hours, the Centre said on Tuesday.
Asked about the rationale behind the government’s 40 day containment plan, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary in the health ministry, said it was important to break the chain of transmissions and if no coronavirus case is reported for 28 days from a specific area, it can be said the chain of transmission in that particular locality has been broken.Agarwal said India had been ahead of the curve in facing the threat of Covid-19 and had started screenings at airports in January. “It is due to our collective efforts that in a largely populated country like India, we had only 1,211 positive cases and 31 deaths reported in the last 24 hours,” he said.
Dr R R Gangakhedkar, chief epidemiologist with the Indian Council of Medical Research, brushed aside the concerns regarding the number of testing kits required. “Yesterday (Monday), we said that we have kits that could last for six weeks. We have received another installment for RT-PCR kits which are far more sufficient in numbers, which would essentially mean that we would be able to cover ourselves for a long period of time. Additionally, we are ordering close to about 33 lakh kits for RT-PCR and 37 akh rapid kits are expected to come at any point in time,” said Gangakhedkar.
Guidelines for care
Health ministry issued guide-lines for states to let essential health services function amid complaints that people were facing problem in accessing them
Govt allows pool testing
In a move to reducing the number of kits used in testing samples, the govt allowed UP to pool test samples from up to five suspects in one go through RTPCR method