Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday stated the state government's decision to purchase 50,000 more ICMR approved Rapid Antigen Test kits to scale up COVID-19 test in view of the spike in the number of COVID-19 patients, particularly among the security forces.
The proposed procurement is in addition to the 20,000 test kits the state had procured earlier.
Noting the rise of positive cases within the police department, the chief minister stated in a media handout that contact tracing and testing has been taken up aggressively.
Biren said over 840 police personnel and their contacts have already been tested. To scale up the testing, a dedicated sample taking/testing team is being set up using police department doctors and healthcare workers, he added.
“We have also decided to increase the number of sample/testing teams in Imphal West and East as the spread is more,” the chief minister said.
Till Wednesday, the state recorded a total of 3,093 positive cases, including 1224 active cases, 1862 recoveries and seven deaths. The recovery rate rose to 60.20 per cent, according to the state health department.
“While panic does not help, each person must strictly adopt social distancing if we are to tackle COVID-19 successfully,” the chief minister said in view of the increasing number of COVID-19 positive cases in the state.
“Each person should recommit to adopt the COVID-19 preventive actions of social distancing, wearing face masks and washing hands with soap. All social gatherings should be avoided,” CM Biren said.
While the number of COVID-19 patients in the state is increasing, to accommodate the positive cases, the state has made an arrangement of 1,636 beds in the entire COVID care centers combined. Accordingly, the COVID beds at JNIMS (100) and RIMS (47) will be earmarked for the treatment of symptomatic and severe COVID positive patients, he said.
