Nitish Kumar holds meeting with state Health Department, stresses on door to door screening of migrants

The Chief Minister said that keeping in view the future challenges, the health infrastructure of the state should be further strengthened and it should be expanded. (SNS)


Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday held a high-level meeting with the Health Department officials regarding the status of Covid-19 at ‘Nek Samvad’ in Patna.

Uday Singh Kumawat, Principal Secretary of Health Department, gave detailed information about the updated status of Covid-19 and the preparations being done to tackle it including medical equipment, N-95 mask, RNA extraction kit, drug availability and testing capacity, isolation ward etc.

The Chief Minister said that keeping in view the future challenges, the health infrastructure of the state should be further strengthened and it should be expanded.

“Given the possibility of increasing Corona contagion in the future, make all preparations in advance. If all the preparations are made in advance, we will be successful in the fight against Corona contagion,” said Kumar.

He instructed that the maximum number of migrants should be tested and emphasized that testing capacities will have to be increased further for the steps to be taken at the earliest.

“Door-to-door detailed screening of the migrants should be done on the lines of Pulse Polio Campaign. Along with the screening team, people working in the skill survey should also be accompanying so that the workers can get complete information related to it. Safety of all people is our responsibility. We all have to protect people coming from outside who have suffered a lot. Keep complete preparation for this,” the CM stressed.

He directed that safety equipment, testing kits and oxygen cylinders should be available in sufficient numbers. He directed to take all necessary steps to ensure  availability of equipment. He said that the number of ventilators should also be increased for which instructions are being given since March itself.

The Chief Minister said that in view of the increasing number of infections, advance preparation should be made for adequate availability of essential medicines, etc. He said that appropriate action should be taken to provide the facility of checking corona infection in the private sector also.

Also present in the meeting were Health Minister of Bihar Mangal Pandey, Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Chanchal Kumar, Health Department Principal Secretary Uday Singh Kumawat, Secretary to Chief Minister Manish Kumar Verma, Secretary to Chief Minister Anupam Kumar, Health Department Secretary Lokesh Kumar Singh, Special Officer of Chief Minister Gopal Singh and Executive Director of Bihar State Health Committee Manoj Kumar and other senior officers of the Health Department.