Andhra Pradesh CM holds meeting to review Covid-19 preparedness, instructs officials to conduct oxygen audit in hospital

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy on Tuesday addressed all the district collectors at the review meeting on the Covid-19 preparedness.

The Chief Minister has asked collectors to appoint cluster in-charges and district-level flying squads.

According to an official release, Reddy said there is a need to devote attention to its management so as to avoid hardship to the public as it was done during the first wave last year.

"There is also a need to ramp up testing capacity duly ensuring RT/PCR tests being carried out," he added.

He stressed on the need to ensure that each and every case of death is analysed properly and that appropriate action, in terms of clinical practices, such as to ensure that serious cases are being reported to the hospital on time.

"We are making arrangements to procure enough vaccines to cover 2.04 Cr population between the age of 18-45 at the state cost. Collectors must personally ensure that there is 100 per cent coverage of the left over health workers and other front line workers by appropriately motivating and counselling them," Reddy said

As the country is facing an acute shortage of oxygen, Reddy instructed to carry out an oxygen audit in each of the hospitals so that all patients who really deserve the supply of oxygen can be accommodated.

As per the release, 320-340 metric tonnes of liquid oxygen is being supplied to all the hospitals in the state.

In the meeting, Reddy also instructed the collectors to ensure the effective functioning of the District 104-Call Centres.

"The collectors should also ensure that there are adequate numbers of Covid Care Centres. As of now, 59 CCCs have been operationalized by the district with 33,327 beds. The Collectors should also ensure that the quality food, sanitation, provision of medications, functioning of help desks and all the other appropriate steps are taken as was done last year," the Chief Minister said.

According to the official data released by Union Health Ministry, Andhra Pradesh has 95,131 active Covid-19 cases.