Centre lauded performance of Pondy in checking spread of COVID-19: Min

Puducherry, May 9 () Puducherry Health MinisterMalladi Krishna Rao on Saturday said the Centre has lauded theperformance of the territorial administration in keeping thespread of COVID-19 at bay as there had been only two to threeactive cases of the infection.

Talking to reporters here, Rao said the Joint Secretariesof the Union Health Ministry had contacted him seeking toclarify as to whether Puducherry was "really having such asmall number of active cases."

The officials also wanted to know whether the figuresfurnished were really "correct."

They raised eyebrows largely because of the highincidence of the pandemic in the neighbouring districts ofVillupuram and Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu, he said.

Rao said he had told them that the team work done bydepartments of Health, Police, Revenue and DisasterManagement, Public Health and other line departmentshere has been chiefly responsible for the good achievement ofUnion Territory.

He said he had apprised the officials of the meticuloussealing of all main entry routes between Puducherry and TamilNadu besides blocking of all the 85 small routes through whichone can intrude into the Union Territory, enabling theNarayanasamy-government to prevent spread of the infection.

Rao further said presently there were only three activecases, one each from Reddiarpalayam, Kutchipalayam andSellipet villages in the state government-run Indira GandhiMedical college hospital, undergoing treatment.

Although there were only two cases, on Friday the patientfrom Sellipet was the latest admission.

All these three cases had contact tracing history, theMinister said.

He said that there should be no extension of ongoinglockout beyond May 17 and hence the cooperation of the peopleis absolutely necessary to adhere to 'social distancing andusing of masks'.

Rao said the government was evolving a plan to bring back all those belonging to Puducherry and were residing in otherStates.

Secretary to Health Prashant Kumar Panda who was alsopresent said that there should be considerable increase in thenumber of people downloading 'Aarogya Sethu' apps in theirmobiles as the present number was 'very small'.

Meanwhile, Director of Health and Family Welfare ServicesS Mohan Kumar said the medical personnel from private medicalcolleges were also associated with the present task of testingthe people for COVID 19.

As many as 4,111 people were tested so far and theresults of 3,866 samples were found to be negative and that ofremaining samples were awaited. CORROH ROH