Kolkata, Dec 24 (IANS): In view of the fresh Covid-19 scare because of the rising pandemic graph in certain countries, the West Bengal Health Department on Saturday highlighted a six-point agenda for immediate precautionary measures to be taken for any emergency situation in the coming days.
The six-point agenda was chalked out at a meeting of the top officials of the state health department which was chaired by the state health secretary, N.S. Nigam.
A state health department source aware of the discussions that took place in the meeting said that stress was given on genome sequencing by collecting a total 30 specimens from one state-run and three private hospitals of the state.
The state department officials have been asked to be in constant touch with the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBM) on this count.
The second point of the six-point agenda is to keep constant monitoring to ensure the ventilators in the Covid-19 divisions in all hospitals of the state are in perfect running condition.
"In the wake of the current normal situation, the Covid-19 units in many hospitals of West Bengal are found to be not quite as active as they were during the pandemic period during the last two years. In Saturday's meeting, it has been decided that all hospitals will be sent instructions so that they reactivate their respective Covid units and be prepared with all necessary measures to face any possible emergency situation in the coming days," the state health department official said.
The fourth agenda is to ensure that the entire antigen and RT-PCR testing process is full-proof through immediate purchase of additional one lakh testing kits required for the purpose.
At the same time, necessary instructions will be sent to all the hospitals that the doctors, nursing assistance and health workers posted in all outpatient and department to immediately isolate patients coming with Covid-19 symptoms and conduct their tests as fast as possible.
"The sixth and the most important agenda is to immediately contact all the oxygen plants in the state and have an idea on the production capacity, in view of the past experience of shortage of oxygen supply during the peak of the pandemic period last year," the state health department official said.