Covid care facilities upgraded in Ambala

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ambala, September 2

Government health facilities have been upgraded and private doctors have been roped in following a spurt in the number of Covid cases and deaths in Ambala district.

While testing, quarantine and isolation facilities have been doubled, the arrangements for Covid patients at the Civil Hospitals in Ambala Cantonment and Ambala City have also been ramped up. Besides, private doctors, through local chapters of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), have been roped in to help in tackling the increasing patient load and their health centres have also been made available to deal with the situation.

Prepared to deal with any eventuality

The number of quarantine and isolation beds has nearly been doubled in Ambala district to deal with any eventuality arising out of the pandemic. Besides, testing facilities have also been scaled up in the district to trace, treat and quarantine symptomatic as well as asymptomatic persons. —Dr Kuldeep Singh, Civil Surgeon

The testing capacity has been doubled by adding another RT-PCR machine and initiating antigen tests of all patients showing flu-like symptoms, the number of quarantine beds has been increased from 15,000 to 25,000 and isolation beds from 550 to 1,000 in Health Minister Anil Vij's home district. Moreover, the number of beds at the Covid care centre has been doubled from 100 to 200.

So far, around 63,000 tests have been conducted in the district, of which about 59,000 have come out to be negative and 4,000 positive. The virus has claimed 35 lives here till now.

With an average of 1,500 tests every day, the district has reached 55,500 tests per million. Besides, 10 mobile health teams have been visiting each nick and corner of the district since April 15 and they have examined over 5.24 lakh persons so far.

Following the approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Ambala has begun conducting cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test (CBNAAT) using Cepheid's Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test for Covid patients and installed an RT-PCR machine to conduct real-time reverse transcription ndash; polymerase chain reaction (real time RT-PCR), one of the most accurate laboratory methods for detecting, tracking, and studying coronavirus.

These machines had been functioning at a special Covid testing laboratory set up in Ambala City.

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