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Updated May 15th, 2021 at 16:20 IST

Ghulam Nabi writes to PM Modi; suggests measures to increase COVID vaccine manufacturing

Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, suggesting measures to increase vaccine manufacturing and further augment the health infra.

Reported by: Sudeshna Singh
Ghulam Nabi Azad
ANI/PTI | Image:self
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As India continues to grapple with the second wave of COVID-19, former Union Health Minister and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, suggesting measures to increase vaccine manufacturing and further augment the health infrastructure in the country. A copy of the letter was also sent to the serving Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan. 

Congress, in relation to the letter sent by Nabi earlier in the day for consideration, said that a few recommendations for increasing the capacity of vaccinators in the country besides ensuring more supplies for vaccination to counter the pandemic in the country were also made in the letter.

It is pertinent to mention here that Nabi has also been made the head of the 13-member COVID Relief Task Force created by Congress to coordinate the relief activities of the party with immediate effect. 

PM Modi chairs a meeting on the COVID-19 situation & ongoing vaccination drive 

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, PM Modi chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the Covid and the vaccination-related situation in the country. In the meeting, first, the officials gave a detailed presentation on the state and district level situation of Covid, testing, oxygen availability, healthcare infrastructure, vaccination roadmap, and later, PM Modi taking cognizance of it, went on to discuss and chalk out the future course of action. 

Talking about the first step- testing, he asserted that it needs to be scaled up further, with the use of both RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Tests, especially in areas with high test positivity rates. Besides, for rural areas, he suggested the augmentation of healthcare resources to focus on door-to-door testing and surveillance, and for the same, also suggested empowering ASHA and Anganwadi workers with all necessary tools. In view of the data manipulation reported in a few states in the past few days, he asserted that states should be encouraged to report their numbers transparently without any pressure of high numbers showing adversely on their efforts. 

He further, talked about providing medical facilities to the rural areas, including oxygen, which is emerging out to be a life-saving gas in the battle against COVID. He directed that a distribution plan for ensuring oxygen supply in rural areas should be worked out, including through the provision of Oxygen Concentrators.

As far as vaccination is concerned,  he directed officials to work closely with states to ramp up the speed of vaccination.

He, in the end, stated that  India’s fight against Covid has been guided throughout by scientists and subject experts and will continue being guided by them. 

COVID-tally in India

As per the Union Health ministry's data updated on Saturday, the country registered 3,26,098 new infections and 3,890 fatalities, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 2,43,72,907 and the death toll to  2,66,207, and with this, the fatality rate has come down to 1.09 percent while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has risen to 83.83  percent. The active cases have come down to  36,73,802 comprising 15.07 percent of the total infections. 

(Credit-ANI/PTI)

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Published May 15th, 2021 at 16:20 IST

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