PATNA: Alarmed at the rapidly increasing number of Covid 19 positive cases, the state government in Bihar directed the health department to increase the health infrastructure in COVID-19 dedicated hospitals on war footing.
He has asked to amp up the capacity of COVID hospitals to test 10,000 samples per day, and to increase the number of beds and isolation wards to meet the growing demand for virus treatment.
Reviewing the preparedness to meet the emerging situation of growing count of COVID-19 cases, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Wednesday directed the officials to take necessary measures on an emergent basis in time-bound manner.
The total count of COVID-19 cases reached 3,010 on Wednesday of which 918 recovered whereas 15 people have died.
According to official sources, the chief minister asked the officials to convert the newly built government buildings that are not in use now, into isolation wards.
Kumar also directed the health department to increase the number of beds in almost all the COVID-19 dedicated hospitals in addition to increase the testing of samples to upto 10,000 per day.
According to official sources, the state government has dedicated NMCH, PMCH, IGIMS, AIIMS in Patna, ANMCH in Gaya, JLNMCH in Bhgalapur and SKMCH in Muzaffarpur to handle COVID-19 cases.
In total, all these dedicated hospitals can handle up to 25,000 patients at a time.
Meanwhile, the state health minister Mangal Pandey told the media that two state-of-the-art cobas testing machines have been received from the ICMR for RMRI and the IGIMS.
"Each of these two machines has a capacity to test 1,000 samples per day giving a rise of additional 2000 testing of samples. The current testing capacity of around 3500 samples per day would increase to 5500 with the functioning of two cobas machines," Pandey said, adding that state will achieve the target of testing 10,000 samples per day in the next few weeks.
Official sources said that 2,072 migrant labourers who have returned from other states have been tested positive so far from May 3 to May 27.
The highest number of 486 migrant labourers returned from Maharashtra have been tested positive with infection of Covid-19 followed by 462 from Delhi, 361 from Gujarat, 187 from Haryana, 107 from Rajasthan and other states.
Till date, more than 16 lakh migrant workers and other citizens have returned from other states by the Sharmik special trains and more than 4 to 5 lakh migrant labourers are expected to return in next few weeks by trains.