Central Team in Hyderabad to Assess Covid-19 Situation; to Visit Hospitals, Containment Centres

A central team on a visit to Hyderabad to assess the ground situation and study measures to contain spread of Coronavirus visited newly-established Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) on Monday.

The team led by Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Health, Medical and Family Welfare, Luv Agarwal, went around the facility at Gachibowli and inspected isolation and ICU beds. Incidentally, TIMS started in-patient services from Monday.

An abandoned multi-storeyed sports tower, constructed for 2007 World Military Games, was transformed into a hospital in April with 1,224 beds. The hospital has 50 beds with ventilators and 1,000 beds with oxygen facility.

The state authorities plan to use the facility for treating COVID-19 patients and later turn into a full-fledged multispeciality hospital.

The central team will visit COVID-19 designated hospitals and few containment centres picked up randomly.

It is also expected to review COVID-19 response and management in Telangana along with Health Minister Eatala Rajender, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and senior officials.

This is the third central team to visit the state after the state reported the first Coronavirus case in March. An inter-ministerial team had visited the state in April and had expressed satisfaction over the measures taken by the state government.

A second team visited the visit early this month and reviewed with officials the COVID-19 situation following the easing of the lockdown.

The third team is visiting Hyderabad at a time when the big spike in positive cases during the last few days has taken the tally to over 14,000. Telangana is reporting almost 1,000 new cases every day, 80-90 per cent of them from Greater Hyderabad.

Concerned over the surge, the Telangana government is mulling to re-impose lockdown in Hyderabad for a few days. Health Minister Eatala Rajender said medical experts have suggested a 15-day lockdown. Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Sunday said he would take a decision in this regard in 3-4 days.

The COVID-19 cases in the state rose to 14,419 cases with 983 people testing positive for the virus on Sunday.