Health officials on high alert to tackle coronavirus in Telangana: Etela Rajender

The health officials here have continued to keep a tight vigil over surveillance efforts following multiple cases of novel coronavirus being reported in other States. On Wednesday, Health Minister Etela Rajender sought to assure people that the heath officials were on a high state of alert and there was enough infrastructure in terms of availability of isolation beds, to meet possible clusters of COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, the first COVID-19 positive patient, who was admitted to Gandhi Hospital, has tested negative twice. “We should hopefully be able to discharge the patient in coming days. People should realise that testing positive for COVID-19 doesn’t mean a death sentence. People can recover from COVID-19,” Etela said.

Testing for COVID-19 would be taken up at three more facilities including Kakatiya Medical College in Warangal, Institute of Preventive Medicine



(IPM), Narayanguda and Fever Hospital at Nallakunta. “We have received permission to start three more facilities to conduct diagnostic tests for COVID-19. We are already providing diagnostic facilities at Gandhi Hospital and Osmania Medical College. With this, we will have five facilities to test for coronavirus and hopefully these would be enough,” the Minister said.

The isolation beds at various private medical colleges in the State have been physically verified. “In terms of infrastructure, at present we have enough beds. Even the isolation beds that were promised by private medical colleges are ready. Hopefully, we need not have to use all these resources. With respect to the novel coronavirus, we are tracking every development happening across the country and hopefully Telangana will continue to have less number of cases,” he added.