Chandigarh (The Stellar News):The Health & Family Welfare Minister Punjab, Mr. Balbir Singh Sidhu on Monday directed all the Civil Surgeons to ensure Covid-19 vaccination and sampling/testing as per set district-wise weekly target. Mr. Sidhu said that besides the vaccination centres at hospitals, mobile vaccination camps are also being organized at pre-determined locations for which captive beneficiary data has made available by the management of industries, residential societies or concerned organizations. He said that a total of 6,51,363 persons vaccinated with 1st dose those are above 45 years and about 6,536 vaccinated with the second dose. Giving details about healthcare workers (HCWs) and frontline workers (FWs), he said that about 4,12,160 vaccinated with 1st dose and 1,15,290 with the second dose. He said that to further ramp up the vaccination drive among high-risk populations, the Punjab Government has set the district-wise target of vaccination and tests as per high positivity and low testing rate. Pointing out the need to reduce turnaround time between sampling and test results, he said that as time lag leads to spread of infection within this window, all districts to send samples at least 3 times a day to the designated labs.
He said that there is a dire need to review the status and performance of private labs and Covid testing to be increased so as to ensure the compliance of guidelines. Two shifts at District Hospital and Medical Colleges are being organized from 8 am to 2 pm & 1 pm to 7 pm and the separate staff has been deployed for each shift adding that he said a total of 2342 vaccination centres are functional as of dated April 5. Health Minister further said that Police lines and Jails Department has been using their own Health Centres for vaccination where the vaccine is being supplied by the District Hospitals. He also asked the Civil Surgeons to pay special attention to the high-risk areas such as slums and jails with the aim to prevent the major outbreak among such populations. Expressing concern over the surging COVID-19 cases in State, he said that there was 2.9 percent positivity rate has been recorded from 27 Feb. to 5 March whereas it is rapidly increased to 7.9 percent from 27 March to 2 April. He said that to control the Case Fatality Rate, the Health Department is conducting an awareness campaign in rural areas as a high rate of deaths was recorded in villages. He appealed to people to get them tested without any delay if anyone feels the symptoms of coronavirus so that immediate treatment to be provided at home isolation or Covid Care hospitals.
