Less than 2 pc of COVID-19 patients are admitted in ICUs: Harsh Vardhan

New Delhi [India], July 16 (ANI): Less than 2 per cent of the COVID-19 affected patients are admitted in ICUs, said Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan while inaugurating Rajkumari Amrit Kaur OPD Block of AIIMS Delhi on Thursday.
Discussing the newer facilities at the RAK OPD of the apex medical institute, Dr Vardhan said, "It is built on an area of approximately 6,300 sqm, making it the largest known OPD in India. It has been made to decongest the working space at AIIMS and to provide faster and seamless service to its patients."
"This will also make room for the expansion of some services like emergency and nuclear medicine in the main hospital," adding that government is gradually moving in the direction to win the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Less than 2 per cent of the COVID affected patients are admitted in ICUs. Our lab network has been strengthened. We have had exponential growth in the number of labs which have grown from one in January 2020 to 1,234 today. As on date, we have tested more than 3.26 samples per day," said Dr Vardhan.
As per the central government, India has reported 9,68,876 COVID-19 cases including, 3,31,146 active cases, 6,12,815 recovered and 24,915 deaths so far.
"As of now, India's national recovery rate is about 63 per cent and it is continuously increasing. This is matched with progressively increasing recovered cases and the steadily increasing gap between recovered and active cases (2,81,668). This signifies that the measures taken as part of the graded, pre-emptive and pro-active approach under the 'Whole of Government' strategy are showing positive results," he said.
Dr Vardhan added that COVID testing capacity will be strengthened to conduct 10 lakh tests per day.
The health minister inspected many OPDs and interacted with patients to take stock of the facilities during his visit to AIIMS.
He expressed happiness that the new OPD is named after Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, renowned freedom fighter and the first Health Minister of the country.
The health minister directed Dr Randeep Guleria, Director of AIIMS, to expedite the construction work of the Mother and Child Block, Elderly Block and Surgery Block so that people can reap health benefits at the earliest.
"There must be zero tolerance for poor/substandard quality of care and towards patients' inconvenience", he said.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey, MoS (Health) thanked the entire team involved in the construction of state-of-the-art new OPD building and hoped that it will definitely boost the patient care facilities.
"Citizens from every nook and corner of the country have faith in AIIMS Delhi as it provides the best quality of care and AIIMS should keep this glorious tradition intact," he said.
According to an official release, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (RAK) OPD is the largest known OPD in India.
The new RAK OPD Block also has SMART Lab, built at the cost of Rs 15 crore. This connects the various analysers and technologies in a single integrated workflow.
At OPD, the pre-analytics, analytics and post analytics are all physically connected by a robotic track and are seamlessly integrated by technology.
The OPD has a capacity of expansion up to 2 lakh tests per day, with a handling capacity of more than 10,000 patients per day. It is one of the largest such track-based laboratory automation installations across the Asia Pacific and has been commissioned in less than one year. (ANI)