The prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 in the country are being monitored at the highest level and various actions have been initiated in collaboration with the States. Hon’ble Prime Minister is regularly monitoring and reviewing the situation with top officials of the concerned Ministries/Departments and States/UTs.

Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has praised the proactive efforts from the representatives of social welfare organisations in spreading awareness, laying emphasis on social distancing, arranging basic necessities for the poor and more to fight the menace of COVID-19. He has also spoken through a video conference with the Heads of all the Embassies and High Commissions of India around the world to discuss the responses of Global COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare chaired the 10th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) held today. Sh. Hardeep S. Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, Dr. S. Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs, Sh. Nityananda Rai, Minister of State for Home, Shri Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State (I/c), Ministry of Shipping, Chemicals and Fertilisers and Sh. Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health & Family Welfare, members of the GOM, were present. Various issues related to implementation of the lockdown, the issue of the migrant labourers, containment measures of the emerging hotspots, ensuring adequacy of essential items such as PPEs, masks, ventilators etc., were discussed in detail by the group.

A Science and Technology Empowered Committee for COVID-19 response has been constituted chaired by Prof Vinod Paul, Member, NITI Aayog and Prof. K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific adviser to the Govt of India, to coordinate amongst science agencies, scientists, industries and regulatory bodies. The Committee will work with the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Institute for Science (IISC)  to take speedy decisions on research and development keeping in view the critical need to increase the testing facilities for COVID-19 disease.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, in collaboration with the Ministry of Textiles, Pharmaceuticals and the States, is monitoring the requirement of PPEs, masks and ventilators, factories producing essential items and is also coordinating with all the States in rigorously tracing of all contacts so that we ensure to not miss any cases as per our containment strategy.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has uploaded training resources on the website for ANMs, ASHAs, Angawadi workers, AYUSH practitioners, doctors, nurses and other health professionals for field surveillance, supervision, lab testing, clinical management, isolation facility management, intensive care, infection control management, and quarantine facility management for COVID-19 management. Two webinars were conducted by the Ministry of Health on 30th March in which 15,000 nurses were trained online.

As of now, 1251 confirmed cases and 32 deaths have been reported. During the last 24 hours, 227 new confirmed cases and 3 new deaths have been reported.

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MV