Two-day nationwide Covid-19 mock drill concludes at 35 States and UTs

In a massive country-wide exercise in India's fight against COVID-19, a two-day COVID-19 mock drill was conducted successfully at 35 States and union territories across 724 districts, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Tuesday.

The Ministry stated in the release, "Amidst a gradual spike in COVID-19 cases in several states, the Union Health Ministry had written to States and UTs on March 28, 2023, to conduct mock drills on April 10 and 11 across all health facilities, including COVID dedicated healthcare facilities to evaluate their level of preparedness, in terms of equipment, procedure and manpower".

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on April 7, chaired a meeting with state health ministers and urged them to conduct mock drills of all health facilities and requested them to review preparedness with district administration and public health officials.

The mock drills were subsequently undertaken on April 10 and 11in a total of 33,685 health facilities, including 28,050 govt. facilities and 5,635 private health facilities, the release stated.

The government facilities included government medical colleges, hospitals, district/civil hospitals, CHCs, HWCs and PHCs. The Private health facilities included Private Medical Colleges, Private Hospitals and other private health centres.

As per the release, critical medical infrastructure and resources including oxygen beds, isolation beds, ventilators, PSA plants, LMO, oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders as well as medicines and PPE kits were assessed and medical staff were oriented on the management of COVID-19 during the drills.

"In preparation for the nationwide mock drill, online training with State and District Surveillance Units was also conducted on April 4, 5 and 6. This training focused on the role to be played by state and district surveillance units, data fields to be updated, type of facilities to be covered and details of helpline for States/UTs facing any difficulty in feeding data on the COVID-19 India Portal. A total of 1544 participants took part in the preparatory training," the Ministry further added in the release.

Meanwhile, India reported a total of 5675 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, which was a marginal decline from Monday's case count of 5,880, stated a bulletin issued by the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday.

India's overall active caseload currently stands at 37,093, with a daily positivity rate of 2.88 per cent and a weekly positivity rate of 3.81 per cent, according to the release.