Manipur has sufficient medical essentials and is well prepared to tackle any Covid outbreak, state Health director Dr Sasheekumar Mangang said on Tuesday. The public need not panic, he said.
"BF.7, the new variant that is widely spreading in several foreign countries is not new to India as it has been already detected in June in Gujarat and similar variant BF.1 in Odisha. However, it is not detected in Manipur so far," Dr Sasheekumar told said.
Speaking to the media at his office chamber in Health Directorate in Imphal West, Sasheekumar informed that a statewide mock drill was conducted on Tuesday as a preparation to meet any eventualities of any possible Covid outbreak, as per the directive of the Union Health Ministry.
Highlighting the present scenario of the medical essentials of the state, he said the state has enough oxygen supply and cylinders, though a few of the PSA plants faced some small malfunction.
Informing that the state has dedicated 148 ICU beds and above 500 beds with oxygen supply for Covid, he said it is believed that there will be no rush for Covid beds.
Only 20 per cent of the Covid positive patients were hospitalised in the past, however the rate of hospitalisation cases among Covid patient has declined, he said, adding that the state government can expand the numbers of general beds and ICU and activate the Covid Hospital at Kiyamgei which is currently utilised as a Maternity and Child Hospital, in case of any emergency.
The numbers of government run ambulances during the first wave was only 20 and now it has increased to 92, he said. The ambulances have been equitably distributed in all the 16 districts. Moreover there are various privately owned ambulances, so ambulance service will not be an issue, he added.
Concerning the vaccine hesitancy among the public where only 62.8 per cent of the eligible population received the first dose, 53 per cent the second dose and 30 per cent received the booster dose, he said that the state government is set to intensify the vaccination drive.
Adequate numbers of vaccines have been requested for supply from the Central government, he said, admitting that as of now the state has no stock of Covishield but has Covaxin stock.
Talking about the testing process, the director assured that testing will no longer be time consuming like in the past, as almost all the districts have the facilities of RT-PCR and TrueNat, besides there are 1,50,000 testing kits for RAT.
Regarding the guidelines for testing foreign visitors or returnee as instructed by the Centre, he said as per the instruction two out of every 100 foreign visitors or returnee should be tested; so there is no testing done if the foreign visitors or returnee is less than 50.
Testing can be done if the airline authority notified the government, he said, adding that the state government has reserved two beds for foreigner returnee or visitors, in case of any emergency.
Stating that Manipur has been maintaining zero Covid case since the last two weeks, he said necessary advisory will soon be announced to the public to prevent any possible Covid outbreak.
