New Delhi: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday called on President Ramnath Kovind and briefed him on the issues related to the Covid19 pandemic in the country and the efforts to combat it.
Sources said that the health minister gave a detailed deliberation on India's response to Covid-19 pandemic.
Vardhan has also informed Kovind about India's achievements as far as minimum COVID cases fatality rate is concerned.
Meanwhile, External Affairs Committee of the Parliament, during the day, had a detailed briefing by the ministries of External Affairs, Home Affairs, Health and Family Welfare, Commerce and Industry, Finance and Civil Aviation on Covid-19 pandemic global response: India's contribution and the way forward.
The Health Ministry, on the other hand, has distributed the biggest ever allocation of 4.24 crore Hydroxy-chloroquine (HCQ) medicine to the States and UTs.
Sources said that the ministry sanctioned the medicines for states and UTs on Saturday. HCQ, anti-malaria drugs, is currently being used for the treatment of Covid19 patients and is recommended as a prophylaxis of the virus.
India's COVID case fatality rate (CFR) on Wednesday touched to 2.23 per cent which is one of the lowest in the world. As many as 35,000 have been recovered in last hours taking the total number of recovery cases to near about 1 million with a recovery percentage of 64.51.
"Not only has the CFR been kept a low rate, the successful implementation of effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standard clinical management protocols based on the holistic standard of care approach have in tandem resulted in a consistent trend of more than 30,000 recoveries per day for the last six consecutive days," officials said.
The total number of active cases in India at present is 5,09,447.
Interestingly, with 4,08,855 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the number of tests per million has increased to 12,858 and cumulative testing has crossed 1.77 crore through 1316 laboratories across India.
Meanwhile, the health minister said that smoking increases the risk of Covid-19 as well as worsens the outcome in people who get infected with the virus.
"Alcohol intoxication can also increase risk and then other effects including a reduction in immunity can increase the risk. Similar efg3xt3d can be anticipated with other drugs as well," said Vardhan while releasing a book on Standard Treatment Guidelines for Substances Use Disorders (SUD) and Behavioural Addictions.
Highlighting the harmful association of Substance Use with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cancer, road traffic injury as well as mental health, he said, "Awareness and cooperation between society and medical fraternity to fight the menace of addiction needed for the realisation of the Prime Minister's vision of New India."
Also read: Harsh Vardhan urges health fraternity to maintain hygiene
