VIJAYAWADA: Stating that the government is focusing on testing and tracing COVID-19 cases thereby reducing the mortality rate, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday sought the support of the Centre to ramp up the medical infrastructure in the state.
"Andhra Pradesh is a newly formed state. We do not have Tier-I cities like Hyderabad, Bengaluru or Chennai which have all the infrastructure and hospitals. The Centre should extend its support in ramping up medical infrastructure in the state,'' Jagan Mohan Reddy requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi while participating in the video conference held by the latter with Chief Ministers of various states.
Jagan Mohan Reddy said the state is adopting a focused strategy as part of which tests are being conducted in clusters to identify cases at the earliest. "By this, we were able to identify positive cases and extend medical care to them thereby decreasing the mortality. Through this testing strategy, we are not just giving timely treatment to those affected but also containing the spread of the virus,'' he said.
Elaborating on the steps taken by his government, Jagan Mohan Reddy said when the first case was identified in the state in March, there was not a single virology lab in the state and samples had to be sent to Pune. But now, all the 13 districts of the state have labs and all the districts are well equipped to extend medicare to COVID-19 victims.
Jagan Mohan Reddy said at least two lakh persons including medical staff, police and others are playing a key role at the ground level to conduct tests on a massive scale, identify those who are affected, trace their contacts and extend treatment.
The Chief Minister said the state has 138 hospitals in both the private and government sector with 37,189 beds treating COVID-19 patients. Similarly, to treat patients with mild symptoms, the state has 109 COVID care centres with 56,000 beds.
"Before the COVID-19 situation, government hospitals had just 3,286 beds with oxygen facilities and this has now been increased to 11,000. In the past three months, 7,000 oxygen beds were made available,'' he said.