CM YS Jagan urges Centre to cut booster gap

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday urged the Centre to review its advice on the gap of nine months for administering booster doses to fully vaccinated people in view of the rising Covid-19 wave in the country. In fact, it would be better if the dose is administered in a gap of three to four months, he felt.

At a review meeting on the pandemic situation at his camp office, the Chief Minister said such an advancement of the deadline would benefit frontline workers and those providing emergency services and also reduce hospitalisations. He said he would write a letter to the Centre in this regard.

The Chief Minister directed the officials to focus on scaling up vaccination in five districts (East Godavari, Guntur, Kadapa, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam) with the lowest second dose vaccination. He said vaccination to the age group of 15-18 years had been completed 100 per cent in Nellore and West Godavari, and it was 90 per cent in five districts and 80 per cent in other four districts and directed the officials to expedite the vaccination process in Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts.

The Chief Minister asked the officials to set up big hoardings in village/ ward clinics and government hospitals displaying details of Aarogyasri scheme. He said village clinics should be referral points for Aarogyasri scheme, with detailed information on available treatment locations.

He reviewed the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of the patient referral system under Aarogyasri and also of SOPs related to Arogya Mitras in network hospitals, village / ward secretariats, primary health centres and medical officers for 104 and 108 services.

He said the medical services under Aarogyasri scheme should be delivered efficiently and added that the mechanism of sending patients to hospitals for treatment under Arogyasri scheme should be strengthened. He said AI (Artificial Intelligence) must be adopted for more efficient service.

The Chief Minister was told that more beds were in place to treat Covid patients now taking the total to 53,184. So far, 1,100 people had been hospitalised out of 27,000 active cases and only 600 of them were on oxygen support. Moreover, patients were getting discharged in seven days now. In all, 28,000 beds were provided inn Covid care centres in the constituencies.