With Eight Deaths, UP Tops COVID-19 Doctor Fatalities Amongst Healthcare Workers

LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI || Uttar Pradesh contributed for the maximum number of doctor deaths during the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic, union minister of state for health and family welfare Ashwini Chaube told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply on Tuesday.

In UP nine health workers, including eight doctors died of COVID-19, the minister informed.

In the overall deaths of health workers, Maharashtra logged the highest with 21 of which six were doctors.

West Bengal reported 14 deaths of health workers of which four were doctors, Tamil Nadu 19 with 5 of them being doctors. Andhra Pradesh lost12 health care workers, including 5 doctors, Gujarat reported 14 health worker deaths of which five were doctors.

Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Puducherry reported no deaths of health workers due to COVID.

The minister also informed that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare provided guideline on Infection Prevention and Control practices to the State Governments. Training was conducted for all the States in the month of March 2020. A training plan was also conveyed to States to complete training up to district level by 20th March 2020.

Training on Infection Prevention and Control was also made available for all category of healthcare workers on the iGoT platform. The healthcare workers were provided with hydroxychloroquine for prophylaxis and prevention of infection.

The package of Rs 15000 crores (USD 2 Billion) under “India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package” was been approved by the Cabinet on 22nd April, 2020. The funds and commodities are allocated to the states under various components including Emergency COVID-19 response. The States were supported with 9.81 Crore tablets of Hydroxychloroquine and 28,476 ventilators supplied to States/UTs.

Initial part of the Pandemic, there were concerns on non-availability of protective gears. However, with Government of India stepping in to enhance capacity and allocating PPE to States as per need, this concern was addressed. States/UTs were provided with 3.05 crore N-95 masks and 1.2 Crore PPE kits.