GOVERNMENT SHIFTS TO ‘LARGE OUTBREAK CONTAINMENT’

Prelims level : Miscellaneous Mains level : GS-II Government policies and interventions for development in Various Sectors and Issues Arising out of their design and Implementation.
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Context:

  • The Union Health Ministry has announced that India has now stepped out of the local transmission phase and moved into the “large outbreaks amenable to Containment Phase”.

COVID-19 and its Spread:

  • With a current case doubling rate of 96 hours and the infection having spread to nearly 300 of the 736 districts across the country.
  • The protocol presently followed has been set out in the Union Health Ministry’s “Containment plan for large outbreaks” document.
    • This includes active surveillance for cases and expanding laboratory capacity.
    • The other measures under the protocol include implementation of social-distancing measures, providing chemoprophylaxis with hydroxy-chloroquine to asymptomatic healthcare workers and asymptomatic household contacts of laboratory confirmed cases.
    • The document also lists the hospital facilities to be provided to COVID-19 patients.

The Three-Tier Arrangement

  • Anticipating about 15% of the patients are likely to require hospitalization, and an additional 5% will require ventilator management, the Centre has planned a three-tier arrangement for managing suspect/ confirmed cases.
  1. 1.Mild cases:
  • Will be kept in temporary makeshift Hospital Facilities
  1. 2.Moderate to Severe Cases
  • Cases requiring monitoring of their clinical status will be admitted to COVID hospitals.
  1. 3.Severe Cases
  • Cases that may progress to respiratory failure and /or progress to multi-organ failure and hence critical care facility/ dialysis facility etc shall be required.
  • The Ministry is also looking at scaling down operations – if no secondary laboratory confirmed COVID-19 case is reported from the geographic quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all his contacts have been followed up for 28 days.
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