Mortality rate low in AP : Special Chief Secretary of Health K S Jawahar Reddy

Amaravati: Appealing to people to seek medical care at the earliest possible before the condition deteriorates, Special Chief Secretary of Health K S Jawahar Reddy said that the mortality rate in Andhra Pradesh is under control.

Addressing the media here on Saturday, Jawahar Reddy requested people to be on high alert, especially when they have symptoms like high fever, breathlessness, and oxygen saturation dropping below 94 per cent.

He also appealed to people to contact 104 helpline or local ANM (auxiliary nurse midwife) or village or volunteer volunteer either to get shifted to a hospital or home isolation for treatment.

He said that the state government established control rooms from village level to the district level for the convenience of the patients and also enabled telemedicine service through 14410 call centre.

With regard to the facilities at Covid hospitals, Jawahar Reddy said that 20,000 additional staff is being recruited to offer services in 138 Covid hospitals and 1,000 more ventilators have been made available.

He stated that the helpdesk has been set up at every hospital to provide patient health status to their relatives and also update on the availability of bed strength. Besides having a helpdesk and display board of bed strength, one can also check the status of bed availability online through the health department portal.

"To bring down mortality rate, we ensure that all the clinical protocols are followed and make sure that death only occurs when the patient is serious and on a ventilator and not on general bed. The very last attempt to save the patient is to be a ventilator not on an oxygen bed. In case if the death occurs within six days of admission, then the problem lies somewhere apart from the treatment provided," he said.

The government is taking up community-based Sero-Surveillance in four districts of Krishna, East Godavari, Anantapur and Nellore to find out the extent of the infection among people.

As many as 3,750 samples in each district will be collected and tested for the presence of IgG antibodies.