COVID-19 UPDATES AS ON 10.9.2020

 

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Health Ministry urges States/UTs to Mandatorily retest all Symptomatic Negative Cases of Rapid Antigen Tests through RT-PCR

States/UTs to ensure that no Positive Cases are Missed to curb the Spread of Infection

Posted On: 10 SEP 2020 12:43PM by PIB Delhi

Union Health Ministry has noted that in some large States, symptomatic negative cases tested by Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) are not being followed up by RT-PCT testing.

The Guidelines of ICMR as well as the Union Health Ministry clearly state that the following two specific categories of persons must necessarily be retested through RT-PCR tests:

1.        All symptomatic (fever or cough or breathlessness) negative cases of Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).

2.       Asymptomatic negative cases of RAT that develop symptoms within 2 to 3 days of being tested negative. 

 

In this background, the Union Health Ministry and ICMR have jointly written to all the States/UTs and urged them to ensure that the all symptomatic negative cases of RAT are mandatorily retested using the RT-PCR test. This is necessary to ensure that such symptomatic negative cases do not remain untested and do not spread the disease among their contacts. This will also ensure early detection and isolation/hospitalization of such false negatives. It has also been reiterated in the joint letter that while the RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID tests.

The Union Health Ministry has also urged the States/UTs to urgently establish a monitoring mechanism in every district (a designated officer or a team) and at the State level to follow up such cases. These teams shall analyse details of RAT conducted on a daily basis in the Districts and State and ensure that there are no delays in retesting of all symptomatic negative cases. The aim of States/UTs should be to ensure that no potentially positive case is missed out. They have also been advised to undertake an analysis on a regular basis to monitor the incidence of positives during the RT-PCR tests conducted as a follow up.

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MV/SJ

HFW/COVID Min-ICMR letter/10September2020/2

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Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

73rd session of WHO South East Asia Region

Member States adopt Declaration on the collective response to COVID-19 in South-East Asia Region

Posted On: 10 SEP 2020 4:56PM by PIB Delhi

At the conclusion of the 73^rd session of WHO South East Asia Region held under the Chairmanship of Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health, Thailand, the Health Ministers of the member states agreed to the SEAR Member States’ Declaration on the collective response to COVID-19 in South-East Asia Region.

The text of the declaration is as below:

We, the Health Ministers of the Member States of the WHO South-East Asia Region participating in the Seventy-third session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia

Concerned by the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical, mental and social well-being of people, on economies and societies, and in particular by the consequences of disrupted health services, in particular non-COVID-19 essential health care and public health programs, in Member States of the Region,

Recognizing the importance of regional solidarity, and of the regional initiatives which bolster the resilience of health systems in responses to the pandemic, namely the South-East Asia Regional Flagships on Universal Health Coverage and Health Emergencies which scale up capacity in emergency risk management; SEARHEF which provides rapid financial resources during public health emergencies,  and the 2019 Delhi Declaration on Emergency Preparedness (SEA/RC72/R1) which commits to scale up capacities in disaster risk management and emergency preparedness in the Region and WHA73 resolution on COVID-19 response (WHA73.1),

HEREBY agree to the following:

· Reaffirm the importance of Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care as a safety net for people in accessing quality health services - both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 – emphasizing the need to prioritize investment in Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care to ensure equitable access by all people, including vulnerable populations, to all essential health services, without financial barriers, during the pandemic;

· Strive to sustain essential health services and public health programs, in particular during public health emergencies and to use this opportunity to build back better our health systems; 

· Prioritize health of the population and saving lives by allocating adequate health budget to sustain uninterrupted health services during and after the pandemic;

· Strengthen health information systems which capture timely reporting of outbreaks by leveraging digital technologies, and sharing information for policy decision;

· Ensure occupational health, safety and wellbeing of health professionals and other related workers, strengthen safety of patients and the people through adequate public health and social measures, and access to different types of quality personal protective devices;

· Strengthen occupational and environmental safety through appropriate medical waste management system;

· Strengthen biomedical, health policy and systems research on COVID-19 which support national policy decision, and knowledge sharing across SEAR Member States;

· Continue and expand multi-sectoral collaboration, through a whole of government and society approach, to mobilize surge capacity in the society to mitigate the negative consequences of the pandemic; including effective risk communication, community engagement, and management of the infodemic;

· Strengthen regional collaboration to support SEAR Member States in particular strengthening capacity for preparedness, surveillance and rapid response, field epidemiology training, supply chain management of medicines and medical supplies, and regional stockpiling of essential health resources;

· Identify gaps and strengthen core capacities as required by the International Health Regulations 2005; 

· Fully engage in global discussion on equitable allocation of vaccines, medicines and diagnostics;

We, the Health Ministers of the Member States of the WHO South-East Asia Region, welcoming and appreciating the support of the WHO Director-General and the Regional Director for South-East Asia Region to boost regional capacities in managing public health emergencies in the Region.

Adopted on the Ten Day of September, Two Thousand and Twenty.

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MV/SJ

HFW/HFM-WHO-SEARO-73^rd/10September2020/4

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Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

73rd session of WHO South East Asia Region

Dr. Harsh Vardhan addresses the Ministerial Round Table Session on COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness

“Pradhan Mantri – Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana will lead to strengthening of the Health Sector in the Country”

Posted On: 10 SEP 2020 3:11PM by PIB Delhi

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare attended the73rd session of WHO South East Asia Region (SEARO) through video conference, here today. Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Director WHO SEARO and Dr. Roderico Ofrin, WHO Country Representative for India and Regional Emergency Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme were also present at the event.

Representing India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan offered two interventions in the ministerial round table session on COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness. He first spoke on the three important interventions that were applied to manage COVID – 19 and maintain essential non – COVID health services in India. He later expounded on the strategies that are being applied to ensure that there are increased investments in health and health emergency preparedness and response as well as in International Health Regulation (IHR) core capacities to prevent future pandemics, in the second round of interventions.

Speaking on India’s public health measures to prevent and contain spread of SARS nCoV - 2 since January 2020, he outlined the measures undertaken by the Government of India such as issuing of travel advisories, creation of facilities for quarantine of persons returning from countries which reported cases of COVID – 19, issuing of guidelines for community level surveillance and also scaling up of testing facilities, tracking and testing of all suspect cases, establishment of the three tier health infrastructure in the form of COVID Care Centres (CCC), Dedicated COVID Health Centres (DCHC) and Dedicated COVID Hospitals (DCH) for treatment of asymptomatic to mild, moderate and severe cases of COVID – 19.

Dr Harsh Vardhan also highlighted the increasing domestic production capacity of PPE, ventilators and other medical items required for treatment of COVID – 19 patients which has resulted in India’s resilience in the health sector. He stated that India has developed guidelines for infection prevention and control, testing protocol, clinical management and bio – medical waste management as well as the guidelines to be followed by COVID and non – COVID health facilities. He mentioned about the development of web-based portal for States and UTs to report about testing, hospital admissions, discharged patients, deaths and also to make readily available future estimate of their requirement of medical items for COVID patients. Directives were also issued to all States and UTs to provide non – COVID essential healthcare services.

Speaking on the three important interventions that India undertook for management of COVID and maintain essential non – COVID health services, he mentioned

a) the country’s exponential scaling up of testing from 1 lab in January to 1678 labs at present which can conduct a million tests daily,

b) the country’s exceptional effective clinical management provided by the three tier COVID healthcare involving the development of guidelines for asymptotic to mild, moderate and severe cases by the medical community and their continuous review, updation and dissemination among the practitioners, and

c) the country’s commitment to provide non-COVID essential care by providing life saving healthcare to patients with chronic ailments, malignancies, blood disorders, the pregnant and the elderly and those with emergent conditions that require urgent attention. Directives were issued to all the States and UTs not to dedicate all their health facilities to treat COVID and identify some of them as non – COVID facilities so that they continue to provide healthcare services to those who require urgent medical care.

 

During the session, he expanded on the strategies being implemented in the medium to long term to strengthen core capacities under the International Health Regulations of WHO in order to augment the health, health emergency preparedness and response to prevent adverse effects of future pandemics in India. He spoke about India’s flagship ‘Pradhan Mantri – Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana’ launched by Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi. Under this scheme, “budgetary investment in health sector has been increased to strengthen healthcare services, health emergency preparedness and response and thereby strengthen IHR core capacities.” This will expand public health infrastructure, improve healthcare service delivery and quality, strengthen disease surveillance systems and outbreak response, enhance bio – security preparedness and population health research, he added.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan further linked these efforts with the broader goal of making India ‘Atmanirbhar’(self-resilient) by adopting a co-ordinated approach with States and UTs to work on a common framework. He spoke on the steps taken to enhance bio – medical research and bio – security policies, food and drug safety and thereafter create a coordinated implementation platform responding to multi – sectoral needs including engagement of private sector. Reminding his audience of the self-reliance India achieved in domestic production of PPE, N95 masks and other medical items with close co-operation between government and private sectors, he said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare along with Ministry of Finance are making efforts to identify and remove bottlenecks to stimulate indigenous technology development under “Make in India” initiative in close consultation with other stakeholders.

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MV

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