Agartala, July 13: The two health experts, who visited Tripura recently to take stock of the Covid management, have expressed their satisfaction over the state government's role in handling the pandemic.
According to Tripura cabinet spokesman Ratanlal Nath, the central team praised the role of state government in the overall Covid management.
Most importantly, the expert team in its report also highlighted "able leadership and good coordination between the administration and the health officials" in Tripura, Nath pointed out.
"As per the report submitted by, the number of Covid tests in Tripura was adequate. The special initiative for mass testing in rural areas, government/ private offices, railway station, hospital OPDs and ward wise testing in Municipal areas were also mentioned in the report," Nath told the media.
The other good practices mentioned in the report included facilities for management of moderate and severe cases have never been full even in peak period, plan for expansion of ICU facilities in process, construction of oxygen plants is in process in various hospitals, paediatric covid 19 management group has been set up and conducting training through the state, COVID war room and command centers are functioning regularly, ambulance service is available round the clock for patient transport and monitored via mobile app, the ASHA workers are doing good job in house-to-house visits and patient monitoring, checking of people without masks at police nakas and levying fines for offenders, bed occupancy still below 40 percent, vaccination booking and on the spot registration through COWIN being done at all vaccination sites, all vaccinations are uploaded regularly to COWIN portal, all HCWs and FLWs have received two doses of vaccine and the COVID19 logistic supply is smooth and adequate, Nath said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The central team- Dr. R.N. Sinha, Director Professor (Public Health), All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata and Dr. Ranganath T.G, Assistant professor of Pulmonary Medicine, AIIMS Raipur had visited multiple Covid Care facilities in West Tripura, Khowai and Unakoti districts as well as held meetings with the Health officials from July 5 to July 9 last.
The two-member central team was deputed by the Centre for a five-day visit to support the state’s COVID19 management.
While the central team in its report praised the Tripura government’s role in the overall management of Covid pandemic 2.0, the experts also put some important observations and recommendations too.
The report highlighted some areas of concern that included increasing paediatric cases in the state, no proper facility for moderate and severe cases outside Agartala, The ventilators and ICU outside Agartala are still not functionalized, lack of trained manpower for managing paediatric cases outside Agartala, contact tracing is very low and needs a big boost up, the RAT negative to RTPCR conversion is very low and the general disregard for Covid appropriate behaviour in public places and even healthcare facilities.
After inspecting the overall Covid situation and the existing facilities, according to official sources, the experts made some recommendations that included training to new staff being involved in contact tracing activities, so that the contacts traced to case ratio increases to the desired level, there is scope for community based studies to find out the determinants of inappropriate COVID behaviour of population at Tripura, measures to improve contact tracing and testing, contribution of ASHA towards contact tracing, home visits to home isolated patients etc. should be duly recognized/incentivized, all RAT negative symptomatic cases should be subjected to RT-PCR test, all districts should have a COVID19 management action plan, a copy of the template has been shared with the state (SSO) and facilities for management of Paediatric COVID19 patients need to be put in place.
Meanwhile, Nath said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had highlighted Tripura's achievement in vaccination during his interactions with the Chief Ministers of all North Eastern states on Tuesday.