In one of its kind initiative in the country, the KCR gvernment on Saturday decided to provide corona test kits for the COVID-19 patients under home quarantine.

A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level meeting headed by the health minister Eatala Rajender with the authorities of the health department

The home isolation kit includes antibiotics, masks, sanitizers, Hydrochloroquine, paracetamol tablets will be delivered to Covid-19 patients at their residences.

The kit will be home delivered along with a booklet that contains the measures to follow while under home isolation.

Earlier, the Telangana government had set up a dedicated call centre to provide counselling and care instructions to Covid-19 patients, both asymptomatic/ pre-symptomatic and isolation cases.

The call centre is a 20-seater emergency care centre (1800 599 4455) working in three shifts with an enhanced capacity to handle up to 1,500 calls daily. The call centre will provide information about a balanced diet, precautions to be taken and offer timely advice and suggestions.

The new meaures come in the wake of growing criticism from the Opposition parties against the government for its failure to handle the pandemic.

Telangana Governor Dr Tamsai Soundarajan advised the government to unlock newer strategies to contain the spread of infections in the state which has witnessed an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases.

Telangana has so far reported 30,946 Covid-19 cases including 331 deaths. Officials said 12,423 patients were undergoing treatment either in hospitals or at home.

The Telangana government has set up a dedicated call centre to provide counselling and care instructions to Covid-19 patients, both asymptomatic/ pre-symptomatic and isolation cases.

Experts from the call centre are doing a follow-up on a day to day basis up to 17 days in normal circumstances, the Health Department said on Friday.

Officials said tele-medicine consultation for mildly symptomatic patients undergoing treatment at home is also being provided.

Working in two shifts, the call centre has the capacity to handle 10,000 calls a day.

Distress management, through 24×7 inbound calls, is also being addressed. Emergency management through 108 linkup and transfer facility to the hospital is also being provided.

The inbound call centre is a 20-seater emergency care centre (1800 599 4455) working in three shifts with an enhanced capacity to handle up to 1,500 calls daily. The telemedicine call centre attends to 1,000 calls daily and provides information to around 10,000 Covid patients who are under home isolation.

The call centre tells them about precautions to be taken, provides information about a balanced diet besides enquiring about their health conditions as well as providing timely advice and suggestions.

The Health Department said that in order to further scale up the operations, the 104 call centre is being upgraded and it will have dedicated 75 seats identified for outbound calls.

Dedicated trained professionals comprising 200 tele callers and 75 doctors are being deployed. Quality monitoring teams with a built-up capacity to handle up to 20,000 follow up calls and distress calls is also being set up in the state, it said.

Telangana has so far reported 30,946 Covid-19 cases including 331 deaths.

Officials said 12,423 patients were undergoing treatment either in hospitals or at home.

The spike in the number of Covid-19 cases continued in Telangana with 1,879 new infections on Tuesday, pushing the states tally to over 27,000.

For the fourth time in five days, the state reported over 1,800 cases. With this, the total number of infections rose to 27,612.

According to the director of public health, seven fatalities on Tuesday increased the state’s death toll to 313.

Hotspot Greater Hyderabad continued to be the worst affected region, accounting for 1,422 of the cases reported on Tuesday, while Rangareddy and Medchal districts bordering Hyderabad saw 176 and 94 new cases, respectively.

Karimnagar and Nalgonda districts saw a jump in the cases with 32 and 32 infections, respectively. Officials said cases were reported from 27 out of the 33 districts in state.

For a second consecutive day, over 6,000 tests were conducted in the state. A total of 6,220 people were tested, taking the cumulative number to 1,28,438.

As many as 1,506 people recovered during the day, taking the total number of recoveries to 16,287. The number of active cases now stands at 11,012.

According to the media bulletin, the government hospitals as on Tuesday established a capacity of 17,081 Covid beds, of which 11,928 are isolation beds, 3,537 are oxygen beds, 1,145 are ICU beds and 471 are ventilator beds. The bed occupancy is only 7.8 per cent (1,335). A total of 15,746 (92.2 per cent) beds are vacant.

The Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad, is identified as the Centre of Excellence for COVID Care, where serious cases are admitted. The other major hospitals in Hyderabad where suspects and moderately symptomatic cases are admitted are District Hospital King Koti, Government Chest Hospital, and Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical Medicine (Fever hospital).

The asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients requesting for institutional quarantine are admitted to the Nature Cure Hospital, Govt Nizamia Hospital, Govt Ayurveda Hospital and Govt Homeopathy Hospital.

The COVID-19 cases in Telangana crossed 22,000 mark on Saturday with 1,850 people testing positive during the last 24 hours, health officials said.

For a second consecutive day, Telangana reported over 1,800 coronavirus cases. With a record single-day spike in cases, the state on Friday crossed 20,000 mark, overtaking both Rajasthan and West Bengal in terms of total number of infections so far.

With Saturday’s figure, the state’s tally mounted to 22,312.

Telangana also reported five deaths, taking the death toll to 288.

Of the new cases recorded on Friday, hotspot Greater Hyderabad alone recorded 1,572 cases.

According to the health department, 6,427 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. This is the highest number of tests to be conducted in a single day. With this the state has so far conducted over 1.10 lakh tests.

Telangana also saw 1,342 people recovering from the disease. Officials said the cumulative figure of recoveries mounted to 11,537.

A total of 10,487 people are undergoing treatment in hospitals or at home.

Meanwhile, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said the state has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities.

He told Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba during the latter’s video conference with all the state chief secretaries that after the Central team’s visit to Telangana, the state ramped up testing facilities and working on enforcing surveillance in containment zones.

The Cabinet Secretary underlined that the focus should be on keeping the number of deaths as low as possible. The Chief Secretaries should personally review and take stock of the personal protection equipment, availability of N95 masks, clinical management and other infrastructural issues, he said.

Meanwhile, Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, G. Srinivas Rao said currently 13 laboratories were conducting daily 6,500 tests while five more laboratories would start conducting the tests soon.

The official said 13 private laboratories were issued notices for discrepancies in the testing data.

He said the private labs had the capacity to conduct 8,000 tests every day and some of them were doing more tests than their capacity which could have led to discrepancies.

The official said the COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatment in Gandhi Hospital, Fever Hospital, King Koti Hospital and Chest Hospital, all in Hyderabad. Critical patients were being treated in Gandhi Hospital.

The hospitals have 2,501 beds and of them 1,034 were occupied.

As many as 6,556 people who tested positive were in home isolation and they were being treated through telemedicine.

With a record single-day spike in Covid-19 cases, Telangana on Friday crossed 20,000 mark, overtaking both Rajasthan and West Bengal in terms of total number of infections so far.

A day after recording 1,213 cases, the state touched a new high of 1,892 positive cases, pushing its tally to 20,462.

Telangana has now climbed to the sixth position in the list of states with most cases.

The state also reported eight deaths, taking the death toll to 283.

Of the new cases recorded on Friday, hotspot Greater Hyderabad alone recorded 1,658 cases, which is also the steepest single-day jump.

According to the director of public health and family welfare, 5,965 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. This is the highest number of tests to be conducted in a single day. With this, the state has crossed one lakh mark in the cumulative number of tests done.

The state also saw 1,126 people recovering from the disease. Officials said the cumulative figure of recoveries mounted to 10,195.

A total of 9,984 people are undergoing treatment in hospitals or at home.

New cases were reported from 24 out of 33 districts in the state. While Greater Hyderabad continued to be the worst-affected, Rangareddy and Medchal district bordering the state capital registered 56 and 44 cases.

In a big spike, 41 cases were reported from Warangal rural district. Sangareddy, Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar districts also reported the cases in double figures.

Meanwhile, the Health Department has decided to hold the data of one of the private laboratories after it reported an extremely high sample positivity rate. “The said lab has reported 2,672 positive cases against 3,726 total samples tested. The Positivity rate is 71.7 per cent which is a gross variation and discrepancy in the notified positivity rate of Covid-19 till date. The tested negatives are only 962 out of 3,726 samples. The issue needs to be evaluated by an expert committee and until then the data of the said lab has been kept under abeyance,” said the bulletin.

The Telangana government on Thursday announced that private labs in the state were asked not to conduct Covid-19 tests.

The decision was taken after an expert panel found procedural lapses and lack of proper infrastructure. The expert team also found that the private labs were not following quality standards and certain protocols in conducting Covid-19 tests.

Earlier, the Telangana government had permitted around 18 private laboratories to conduct COVID-19 tests. However, an expert team was constituted to inspect the private labs. The team has raised red flags in connection with the infrastructure, quality standards, procedures and protocols followed at these labs.

Following this, the Telangana government has directed the private labs to stop taking samples for the next four days from July 2 to July 5. The government gave four days time for the private labs to improve their quality standards. Further, the private labs were asked to impart special training to their staff in conducting the Covid-19 tests by following protocols and procedures.

Telangana’s swell of new coronavirus cases continued on Tuesday even as the government is seriously mulling over whether to reimpose lockdown in Greater Hyderabad or enforce stricter measures in hotspot zones in the city.

State health department confirmed 945 new cases of COVID-19 in Telangana in the last 24 hours, raising the state’s total number of confirmed coronavirus infections to 16,339. Of the 945 new cases, a whopping 869 positive cases were reported in GHMC limits.

After the reopening of the economy, the coronavirus spread has been alarming with higher positive-test cases and increasingly strained hospitals. In the last 24 hours, seven succumbed to Covid-19 taking the total fatalities to 260.

The state has been reporting three-digit growth in corona cases despite the measures initiated so far. On Thursday, the state reported 975 new cases taking the corona tally to 15,394 and six new deaths taking the total number of fatalities to 253. The government has attributed the surge in new cases to increased testing capacity. However, it looks like the virus is more widespread than previously thought.

Meanwhile, the Telangana government is expected to finalise a strategy to control the spread of COVID-19 cases in the city following a sharp rise in infections, including a proposal to reimpose a lockdown although many think it is unlikely.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao may not reimpose lockdown again in the state. The CM is likely to hold a Cabinet meet and examine all relevant issues before deciding to reimpose lockdown in GHMC limits. The state government seems to be in no mood to reimpose the lockdown although stricter measures could be imposed in hotspots in the city.

Already, minister for education Sabitha Indra Reddy on Tuesday stated that reimposing lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak will hurt the informal sector, including street vendors and daily wagers. Many of them would lose their wages during the lockdown because their survival depends on daily cash flows. The lockdown will again bring to halt most of the economic activity that has slowly picked up. Small business owners will be particularly hard hit, she said.

In a major decision, the Telangana government on Tuesday postponed all entrance examinations. The KCR government informed the High Court that it will not hold the common entrance exams in view of the coronavirus situation after the court asked the government to clarify on Hyderabad lockdown as entrance in the exams are scheduled to be held from tomorrow.

The Telangana EAMCET (Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test) which was scheduled to be held from July 6 to July 9 was postponed by the government in view of the alarming rise in corona virus cases in the state, especially in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

This is the second time that the state government had postponed the EAMCET exam. Earlier, EAMCET which was scheduled to be held in May were put off due to the extension of lockdown.

Further, the Telangana government has also postponed other common entrance exams, including TS Engineering Common Entrance Test (TS ECET) for diploma holders of engineering, technology and pharmacy, TS Physical Education Common Entrance Test (TS PECET) and TS Integrated Common Entrance Test (TS ICET) for admissions into MBA and MCA, LAWCET, PGECET, PGLCET and EDCE as the state had been witnessing an alarming surge in coronavirus cases, with nearly 1,000 new infections per day, prompting the Telangana government to likely reimpose complete lockdown. Telangana is one of several states that has seen a surge in new Covid-19 cases after the state had rolled back complete lockdown.

The Telangana CET 2020, TS Polycet and PG ECET exams were to be held from tomorrow (July 1, 2020).