44 cases of COVID-19 in country now: Health Ministry

With one more case being reported from Punjab, there are 44 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country now, said Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday.

The Ministry said, "Of the total cases, three positive cases from Kerala are now discharged. As many as 11,913 cases are under IDSP community follow-up. 404 Indian contacts of the US citizen tested positive in Bhutan have been identified and put under surveillance in Assam."

"A total of 9,41,717 international passengers from 8,827 flights have been screened at airports till now with 54 passengers being referred to IDSP/ hospitals," it said.

To meet the increasing demand and convenient screening of passengers, manpower deployed at airports has been substantially increased. There are now 286 doctors, 160 nurses and 295 paramedics stationed at airports across the country.

The Ministry further said, "The Cabinet Secretary took a video conference with Chief Secretaries of all States/UTs here today. He emphasized upon actions like surveillance at points of entry (PoE), surveillance in the community, laboratory support and hospital preparedness."

He called upon States/UTs to scale up logistics, quarantine facilities, capacity building, information management and risk communication.