New Delhi: The Health and Wellness Centres (HWC), under the Ayushman Bharat initiative, have screened 8.8 crores, people, for Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) symptoms and facilitated testing for COVID-19 in last five months since February this year.
With more than 41,790 HWCs across India, more than 1.41 crore people were also screened for hypertension, 1.13 crore for diabetes and 1.34 crore for oral, breast or cervical cancer.
Statistics available with the Health Ministry, as many as 6.53 lakh yoga and wellness sessions have also been organised at the HWCs in the period since the COVID-19 outbreak.
"During the COVID-19 pandemic, the resilience of health system was reflected through continued operationalisation of HWCs and continued delivery of non-Covid19 essential health services while also meeting the urgent tasks of prevention and management of COVID-19," the health ministry said.
HWC teams played a key role in ensuring that non-Covid essential services are provided to their communities. Having undertaken the population-based screening for non-communicable disease, the HWC teams already have a list of those with chronic disease and are able to rapidly screen individuals with comorbidities and provide advice for protection against infection.
Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 recovery rate on Friday jumped to 62.42 per cent with more 19,138 people got cured in the last 24 hours.
Till date, 4,95,515 people have been recovered from Covid19 whereas 2,76,882 cases are still active.