How well is our India responding to COVID-19

Right now the world is facing the biggest crisis since World War II. Almost each and every country has been affected by this Corona virus disease (COVID-19). An outbreak from the China has gone everywhere throughout the world. Till date, over 19.7 million people have been affected by COVID-19 and also about 728K people had died worldwide. Indirectly, billions of people have suffering from the impact of the global pandemic of COVID-19. The pandemic-driven crisis is constantly changing countries are desperate to flattening the curve for COVID-19.

The WHO (World Health Organization) Country Office for India has been working closely along with the Government of India to step-up preparedness and response measures for Corona virus, including surveillance and contact tracing, laboratory testing, risk communications and also community engagement, hospital preparedness, infection prevention and implementation of containment plan at all three levels of health system – national, state and district.  The entire field presence is also including the National Public Health Surveillance Project.

At the national level, India is providing technical support to the Ministry of the Health & Family Welfare through the Joint Monitoring Group and working closely with National Centre for Disease Control, Indian Council of Medical Research, WHO teams are also supporting National and State Governments for ensuring essential health services such as immunization, reproductive maternal newborn child and non-communicable diseases

The first case of the Corona virus in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh was reported in Nellore on 12 March 2020. A 23 year old, who was confirmed positive for the COVID-19. He had travel to Italy. The Andhra Pradesh Health department has confirmed a total of 2, 17,040 cases, which including 1,939 deaths and also 1,29,615 recoveries, as of 08 August. The virus has speeded through the 13 districts of the state, of which the East Godavari has the highest number of cases.

Andhra Pradesh government has launched the mobile testing centres by the end of May month, which operate by government buses converted into testing centres. These mobile centres have been parked at main areas of public transport such as railway stations, bus stands and airports. Then test samples collected from these centres will produce the results within 48 hours from collection of the sample. Then samples are managed by the government of health department and the test subjects are required to produce the ID proof and Aadhaar card number.

The Health, Medical and Family Welfare departments of Andhra Pradesh are directed all District collectors to maintain quarantine centres at district level with 200 beds and constituency level with 100 beds each. By March 25, all district hospitals in state were instructed by Health department of Andhra Pradesh, to setup isolation the wards. According to the Deccan Herald news paper Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of Corona virus tests conducted per million populations.