<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Health & family welfare (H&FW) department has dispatched samples of COVID-19 positive cases for genome sequencing to Kolkata and their results are expected after 15 days. <\/p>\n
Informing this at a press conference at the H&FW directorate here on Wednesday, H&FW principal director (PD) Dr Kevichusa Medikhrü said as per the Centre’s directive, 5% of COVID positive cases have to be sent for whole genome sequencing and hence the State had dispatched them on April 26 and results are awaited.<\/p>\n
Expressing serious concern over the surge in cases in the State, he observed that citizens were being somewhat careless, were not following COVID-appropriate behaviours, adding that it was worse in Dimapur as though nothing was happening. <\/p>\n
Dr. Medikhrü attributed people returning from other States as another reason for the spike in COVID cases and said cabinet held a meeting on Tuesday discuss separate protocols for Dimapur district.<\/p>\n
Asked whether total lockdown would be imposed in Dimapur, he replied that nothing had been decided yet, but admitted that if the cases continued to mount, total lockdown could be imposed. <\/p>\n
He said random testing was being carried out in Dimapur district and that all chief medical officers (CMOs) had been directed to increase tests in their respective districts. <\/p>\n
11 oxygen plants for Nagaland: Dr. Medikhrü said the State would receive 11 oxygen plants – three under PM Cares Fund, which would be installed at Kohima, Dimapur and Mokokchung, and eight from UNICEF and UNDP for other districts. He said the plants were expected to arrive before May 15, adding that once the sites were ready, the equipments would be installed. He expressed the hope that there won’t be much problem, especially in district hospitals.<\/p>\n
Arrangements for oxygen beds: <\/strong>With the State having just 260 oxygen and 66 ICU beds, the PD remarked since the district hospitals were not big, alternative arrangements were being made to set up oxygen beds in government-owned properties.<\/p>\n He said if the cases were overwhelming, then the government would sent out requisition to private hospitals under Epidemic Diseases Act and Disaster Management Act for arrangement of oxygen beds and COVID hospitals.<\/p>\n WHO offers assistance: <\/strong>He said he had received a call from WHO expressing the organisation’s willingness to assist the State and asked whether there was any requirement for any makeshift hospital. He said two makeshifts hospitals had been proposed to be set up in Kohima and Dimapur considering the surge in these two districts.<\/p>\n EDA enforced:<\/strong> H&FW deputy director Dr Kika Longkumer, who too was present at the press meet, remarked that ramping up health infrastructure alone was not a solution to any pandemic and that there had be a joint effort of both the government and citizens.<\/p>\n Mentioning that an amended Epidemic Act had been enforced also known as “The Nagaland Epidemic Disease (COVID-19) Regulations 2020”, he said COVID-positive individuals or those in close contact with such individuals and not cooperating with surveillance teams, not providing information or providing wrong\/false information or withholding information for the purpose of contact-tracing would be liable for punishment as per provision of the Act.<\/p>\n Under the Act, he said refusal to test for COVID by any person traced as a close contact would be liable for punishment under the Act.<\/p>\n Second wave more aggressive: <\/strong>To another question, Medikhrü said compared to last year’s cases, new symptoms were being observed this time, adding that the second wave was more aggressive as people who tested positive were experiencing vomiting, loose motion, neurological problems, conjunctivitis, allergies, etc.<\/p>\n He observed that if the community could be involved in the fight against the pandemic, staving off and handling the second wave would not be a problem, but if everything was left for the government alone, then things could become tough.<\/p>\n According to the PD, more resources were being spent on controlling crowd and implementation of COVID protocols and said, if the community could be involved in all these, the State would not have much problem in battling the virus. <\/p>\n State immunisation officer Dr Ritu Thurr, who too addressed the media, regretted that the response of healthcare and frontline workers to the COVID vaccine was not very encouraging. He said additional consignment of one lakh doses of vaccine was received on April 26, which would suffice for the second dose.<\/p>\n He said though there were no such rules, yet the department was cutting down on administering new doses as that could lead to incomplete vaccination of those awaiting their second dose.<\/p>\n Stating that Nagaland had an estimated eight lakh people between 18-44 years, the health officials said since Government of India had asked the States to buy vaccines, the cabinet had on April 27 decided to procure them and provide free to citizens.<\/p>\n They said vaccines allocation would be done on the basis of weekly consumption, number of positive cases and availability.<\/p>\n Thurr claimed that vaccination rate had improved in the State, adding that more consignment was expected to reach the State after two weeks. <\/p>\n Medikhrü explained that as many health workers could not turn up for vaccination, the percentage still stood at 58%, admitting that false propaganda had a negative impact on the entire exercise. He said when they were hesitant, they could not be forced to come forward and get themselves vaccinated.<\/p>\n However, he said of late people realised that vaccination was good and hence were standing in queue to inoculate themselves. Referring to the figures (see table), he said the general observation was that those 50 years and above had few cases, which meant the vaccine was doing good results, while younger generation was found to be more careless.<\/p>\n Asked whether there was shortage of doctors and nurses, Medikhrü said shortage of health workers was being felt even after creation of new posts, adding that there was a huge shortage of staff nurses too.<\/p>\n CM seeks Defence Min aid to transport oxygen plants<\/strong><\/p>\n State chief minister Neiphiu Rio has sought the intervention of the union defence minister Rajnath Singh to airlift the Oxygen Plants from Delhi to Dimapur.<\/p>\n In a letter to the defence minister, the state chief minister said the state government has been in constant touch with the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare for obtaining the Oxygen Plants. Rio said the state has been informed that the manufacturer was ready to ship it now. However, he said that on account of the road journey time of around 10 days between Delhi and Nagaland, and the fact that COVID cases were rising fast in Nagaland, the state government has approached the Ministry of Defence for airlifting three Oxygen Plants from Delhi to Dimapur airport.<\/p>\n The chief minister has urged the defence minister to direct the concerned authorities to help in airlifting the equipment on an urgent basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" State sends Covid samples for genome sequencing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[679],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nagaland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}