By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Nov 11: The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) on Tuesday confirmed 2,736 new cases of COVID-19 in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the national tally to 199,760. With this, the national tally has inched closer to 200, 000 mark.
Meanwhile, the government has launched tele-medicine service for COVID-19 patients from Monday in all seven states.
Of the new cases detected today, 1,420 patients, including, 603 females and 817 males, were from the Kathmandu Valley’s three districts. ss
In 12,960 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests conducted in the last 24 hours, a total of 2,736 people, including 1,059 females and 1,677 males, were found to be infected with COVID-19, according to the latest MoHP Situation Report.
Currently, there are 38,035 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation while 1,058 are under quarantine, according to the MoHP Update.
Also, among the active cases, 29,734 are in home isolation across the seven states while 404 patients are admitted to the intensive care units (ICU) of hospitals and 96 are receiving treatment with ventilator support, according to the MoHP report.
A total of 14 districts, including Kathmandu Valley’s three districts and Chitwan of Bagmati State, among others, currently have over 500 actives cases, according to the MoHP. Manang is the only district to have zero or no active case.
Meanwhile, 853 COVID-19 have patients recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. With this Nepal’s totally recovery tally has reached 160,577 cases. The recovery rate now stands at 80 per cent.
The MoHP today confirmed 22 more new COVID-19 fatalities, taking the national COVID-19 death toll to 1,148.
Tele-medicine service in 7 states
The MoHP on Monday launched tele-medicine services in all seven states of the country. Issuing a press statement, the Ministry made public the names and contact details of the tele-medicine focal persons from the eight major hospitals of the seven states. The focal persons’ list includes 14 doctors from COVID-19 state hub hospitals and central hub hopsitals.
According to the list, around one to two doctors each from the eight hopsitals, including Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences, Seti Provincial Hospital, Bharatpur Hospital, Surkhet Provincial Hospital, NAMS, Bir Hospital, Koshi Hospital, Lumbini Provincial Hospitall and Janakpur Hospital have been appointed as focal persons.
The patients can avail the necessary consultation services by connecting with the listed doctors via SMS, phone, email among other means, according to a statement issued by Dr. Samir Kumar Adhikari, Deputy Spokesperson of the MoHP.
Free treatment govt. priority: Minister Dhakal
Meanwhile, according to RSS, the government has decided to conduct free test and treatment for coronavirus considering its responsibility. The free test and treatment would be provided at government hospital and laboratory.
The meeting of the Council of Ministers held on Monday took this decision. Talking to the National News Agency (RSS), Minister for Health and Population, Bhanubhakta Dhakal made it clear that government never shirk from its duty to provide service to the people. He further said government, though decided to charge the well to do people for it earlier, reconsidered its decision in the wake of the Supreme Court order and citizen's suggestions.
According to him, more than 1.5 million people had so far undergone PCR test in Nepal and out of them, almost 200 thousand had tested positive for coronavirus.
Currently, a total of 73 laboratories including private run ones are providing coronavirus testing from across the country. From these laboratories, as many as 15,000 tests are conducted. For anyone willing to conduct test on his/her own, he/she is charged Rs 2000. The Ministry has set up some 26,000 ICU and 900 ventilators for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.