Itanagar, July 8: The Arunachal Pradesh government has adopted several strategies like vaccinating maximum eligible people to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the state, Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar informed the Union home ministry on Wednesday.
Attending a video conference chaired by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, the state chief secretary said that the Arunachal Pradesh government has taken up three strategies - extensive tracking and testing, enforcement of Covid appropriate behaviour, and vaccination drive for all age groups - to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
The meeting was held to review the COVID-19 situation in all the north-eastern states and union territories. Kumar informed that the state has completed the first dose vaccination of 68 per cent of the beneficiaries, including those in the age group of 18-44 years. However, he requested the Centre for an additional three lakh COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate everyone who is eligible for the shots.
Kumar informed that the state government is ensuring that any person coming to Arunachal Pradesh, needs to be vaccinated before entering the state. There are two RT-CPR testing units in the state, and every district has TrueNat machines of appropriate capacities for COVID-19 testing, he added. The chief secretary further informed that the state government has improved the health infrastructure even in remote areas.
"Oxygen and oxygen beds have been made available in every district and the government is planning to add another 500 oxygen beds in the state in near future. Moreover, medicine in sufficient quantity is available with the state," Kumar said. On the issue of discrepancy in the data of the ICMR and the state COVID-19 data, the chief secretary informed that it will be rectified by next Monday.
The Union health ministry had said on Tuesday about 73 districts across 17 states and union territories reported more than 10 per cent COVID-19 positivity rate in the week from June 29 to July 5. Eight out of the 17 states and UTs are from the north-eastern part of the country, according to the data presented by the ministry. Joint Secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal told a press conference that these 73 districts include Arunachal Pradesh (18), Rajasthan (10), Manipur (9), Kerala (7), Meghalaya (6), Tripura (4), Sikkim (4), Odisha (3), Nagaland (3), Assam (2) and Mizoram (1).
