While the AP government came under sharp criticism for acute shortage of preventive gear for healthcare workers and ventilators for COVID 19 patients, the Telangana government made public the details of these supplies and said that all the stops are being pulled out to increase their availability.
The Telangana government had placed an order for five lakh PPE (personal protective equipment)— crucial to prevent infection in healthcare workers, health minister Etela Rajender announced on Wednesday. Addressing a press conference, he said the government had ordered for around five lakh N95 masks, two crore masks for doctors, one crore gloves and an order has been placed for 3.5 lakh testing kits for COVID19 patients. Further, the health minister said plans are afoot to ready 15,000 beds in the next 15 days in Telangana.
He said the government had conducted corona virus test to 1,100 people who had attended Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin and returned to the state. Tests were also conducted on 3,110 people who came in contact with the 1,100 people who had attended Tablighi Jamaat from the state. Stating that Telangana has a total number of 453 corona positive cases, Eetala Rajender said none of them were on either ventilators or respirators. “Very soon, they will be discharged,” he hoped.
The AP government came under criticism from TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu over non-availability of PPE kits for healthcare workers. Naidu alleged that Andhra Pradesh has reported a 1,021% rise in the cases as against the national average of 222 % in the last one week and said the government has failed to make adequate medical equipment for doctors and patients.