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India identifies 20 existing, 22 potential hotspots of coronavirus

India has identified 20 existing and 22 potential hotspots of COVID-19 and sees the need of a large human resource to break the chain of transmission of the novel coronavirus.

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By Anu Sharma  April 2, 2020, 3:15:54 PM IST (Published)

India identifies 20 existing, 22 potential hotspots of coronavirus
India has identified 20 existing and 22 potential hotspots of COVID-19 and sees the need of a large human resource to break the chain of transmission of the novel coronavirus.


The country reported its first case of novel coronavirus on January 30. The first case had a travel history to Wuhan in China, the epicentre of the deadly virus.

As on date, India has reported a total of 1,965 positive cases of coronavirus, out of which 1,764 are active cases. Less than 20 positive cases were on ventilators, as on March 30.

While India imposed a 21-day lockdown across the country till April 14, there has been a steep spike in positive cases in some clusters and hence, the government said on April 1 that it has formulated a separate standard operating procedure to deal with such hotspots.

One of the recent such hotspots is from Nizamuddin area of New Delhi, which has the headquarters of Tabligh Jamaat Markaz.

After positive cases emerged among workers of Tabligh Jamaat in Telengana, the union home ministry and Delhi government have started identifying all these workers and as on April 1, 736 people from Markaz were admitted in Delhi hospitals and 1,810 people have been sent to quarantine facilities.

The outbreak of coronavirus in this cluster has become a concern for all states and union territories and all are working to trace the suspect cases.

States have also requested the workers who attended Markaz in the last couple of weeks to identify themselves to the state authorities so that medical screening can take place.

In order to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus throughout the country, the government today said that there is a need of massive deployment of trained human resource.

These people will be needed in field surveillance, contact tracing, data management and reporting, sampling, packaging and shipment of specimen, hospital infection prevention and control including use of appropriate PPEs and biomedical waste management, clinical case management including ventilator management, critical care management, managing quarantine and isolation facilities and in providing community pyscho –social care.

The Centre has advised states to identify and designate a nodal officer for training who will coordinate all training activities in the state.

The health ministry will conduct trainings of master trainers of organisations from where field staff is being deployed and the responsibility of further dissemination will be that of concerned institution.

The concerned organisation will then create a database of trained person who will disseminate and convey the information to all the districts through the ministry of health and family welfare.

"For COVID-19 management, the district administration will pool-in the requisite human resources," the ministry added.

Such pooled human resources would stay in the containment zone till the containment operations are over and trained hospital staff, dentists and AYUSH practitioners should also be available for working in isolation areas, the government has said in its latest directive.

Simultaneously, states have also been asked to identify retired doctors and other healthcare professionals who can work in non-COVID areas in hospitals in case of emergencies.
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