New Delhi: The Center is planning to face the third wave of COVID-19 with a package that could cost the central government over Rs 20,000 crore. The package will focus on improving healthcare infrastructure, such as expanding dedicated treatment facilities, increasing hospital beds and increasing procurement of critical medical equipment and medicines.
According to reports, the Center is preparing an Emergency COVID Response Preparedness (ECRP-2) package worth over Rs 20,000 crore to tackle a possible third wave of infections in the country.
According to economic times, a senior government official, “the idea is to prepare in advance for another possible wave and prevent its spread.”
The health and finance ministries are currently finalizing the details of the package, which will be announced after the cabinet nod. The package aims to supplement dedicated COVID treatment facilities, including increasing hospital beds, strengthening procurement of essential medical equipment and drugs, strengthening national and state health infrastructure, and setting up more laboratories and testing centers, according to the financial daily. To do.
The news comes amid warnings of a possible third COVID wave as well as the emergence of the Delta Plus variant, which the government has dubbed the “Worry Version”.
Such cases have so far been concentrated in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Kerala, and the Center has urged states to step up their efforts in prevention, testing and vaccination.
According to the official, the ECRP-2 initiative will be implemented under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and a huge amount may be disbursed to ICMR and other institutions.
Funding and strengthening pandemic research is likely to be a priority, as genome sequencing will aid in the identification and tracking of new variants, increasing the country’s ability to predict future infection outbreaks.
This will help in avoiding a crisis similar to what happened during the second wave.
During April-May, the country’s health infrastructure proved woefully inadequate to deal with the surge in infections, hospitalizations and deaths as the pandemic tragically caused shortages of doctors, hospital beds, essential medicines and oxygen cylinders. be exposed.
“One thing we have learned is that this is a dynamic situation and even when we create a strategy, we need agility to respond to an emerging situation,” the official previously told the financial daily. Told.
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