Mar 4: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that he has decided not to participate in any 'Holi Milan' programme as experts have advised reducing mass gatherings to avoid the spread of coronavirus.
"Experts across the world have advised reducing mass gatherings to avoid the spread of COVID19 Novel Coronavirus. Hence this year, I have decided not to participate in any 'Holi Milan' programme," the PM tweeted.
This year, Holi is on March 10.
New Delhi, Jun 26: Petrol prices in the national capital have reached Rs 80.13 per litre on June 26, up by 21 paise from yesterday’s Rs 79.92 per litre; while diesel prices in Delhi also rose to Rs 80.19 per litre – up by 17 paise compared to yesterday’s Rs 80.02 per litre.
This is the 20th consecutive day that fuel prices have been hiked by oil marketing companies (OMCs). The hikes began from June 8 after a 83-day halt on revised pricing during the lockdown period.
The state government’s increased value-added tax (VAT) on diesel since May is causing the fuel’s prices to soar in Delhi. VAT was increased to 30 percent for both petrol and diesel from 27 percent and 16.75 percent, respectively.
Coupled with the Centre’s hiked excise duty of Rs 3 per litre since March 14 and then Rs 10 per litre on petrol and Rs 13 per litre on diesel since May 5 has affected prices.
The hike on diesel prices is unusual, as the government traditionally keeps the price for the fuel low due to its impact on agriculture and other high consumption economic activities.
New Delhi, Apr 15: The Union Health Ministry has identified 170 districts as COVID-19 hotspots and 207 districts as potential hotspots, officials said on Wednesday, reiterating that there has been no community transmission of the disease in the country so far.
Addressing the daily briefing to provide updates on coronavirus situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said that states have been asked to classify districts which have reported a higher number of cases as hotspots, the districts where cases have been reported as non-hotspots, and green zones where no cases have been reported.
"Hotspots are those districts which are reporting more number of cases or where the rate of growth of COVID-19 cases is high," Agarwal said, adding a detailed direction has been issued to states stating consolidated efforts are required to utilise this period of lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.
"Cabinet secretary held a video conference today with all chief secretaries, DGPs, health secretaries, collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and CMOs where hotspots were discussed and orientation on field level implementation of containment strategy was given.
"They were told about large outbreak containment strategies, cluster containment strategies. Delineation of buffer and containment zone, parameter mapping, defining of entry and exit points were also discussed in detail," he said.
The joint secretary said movement of people will not be allowed in containment zones except for those related with essential services and special teams will search for new cases and samples will be collected and tested as per sampling criteria.
The officials said that health facilities in buffer zone outside the containment zone will be oriented and people facing SARI and influenza-like symptoms will be tested there.
"Special teams have been formed which will work in containment zone and do contact tracing and house-to-house surveys. Cases of fever, cough and breathlessness will be identified in the survey and requisite action will be taken as per protocol," Agarwal said, adding that there has been no community transmissions so far but some local outbreaks.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in India has risen to 11,439 with 1,076 fresh cases reported in the last 24 hours while the death toll stands at 377, the ministry official said.
New Delhi, May 14: India may witness the death of additional 1.2-6 lakh children over the next one year from preventable causes as a consequence to the disruption in regular health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF has warned.
The warning comes from a new study that brackets India with nine other nations from Asia and Africa that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths as a consequence to the pandemic.
These potential child deaths will be in addition to the 2.5 million children who already die before their fifth birthday every six months in the 118 countries included in the study.
The estimate is based on an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the Lancet.
This means the global mortality rate of children dying before their fifth birthday, one of the key progress indicators in all of the global development, could potentially increase for the first time since 1960 when the data was first collected.
There were 1.04 million under-5 deaths in India in 2017, of which nearly 50% (0.57 million) were neonatal deaths. The highest number of under-5 deaths was in Uttar Pradesh (312,800 which included 165,800 neonatal deaths) and Bihar (141,500 which included 75,300 neonatal deaths).
The researchers looked at three scenarios, factoring in parameters like reduction in workforce, supplies and access to healthcare for services like family planning, antenatal care, childbirth care, postnatal care, vaccination and preventive care for early childhood. The effects are modelled for a period of three months, six months and 12 months.
In scenario-1 marked by 10-18% reduction of coverage of all the services, the number of additional children deaths could be in the range of 30,000 plus over three months, more than 60,000 over six months and above 120,000 over the next 12 months.
Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on May 13
The numbers sharply rose to nearly 55,000; 109,000 and 219,000 respectively for scenario-2, which was associated with an 18-28% drop in all the regular services.
But in the worst-case scenario in which 40-50% of the services are not available, the number of additional deaths ballooned to 1.5 lakhs in the three months in the short-range to nearly six lakhs over a year.
The ten countries that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths are Bangladesh, Brazil, Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania.
In countries with already weak health systems, COVID-19 is causing disruptions in medical supply chains and straining financial and human resources.
Visits to health care centres are declining due to lockdowns, curfews and transport disruptions, and due to the fear of infection among the communities. Such disruptions could result in potentially devastating increases in maternal and child deaths, the UN agency warned.
Comments
Add new comment