While speaking to reporters, the Ministry officials also hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to implement nationwide lockdown and called it to be a timely decision by the Central government.
Sharing daily updates, the Health Ministry informed that no new cases of COVID-19 have been registered in 80 districts for the past 14 days. With over 23,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 4,748 patients have been cured across the country so far.
Agarwal also said in the last 28 days, 15 districts have had no new Covid-19 infections and 80 districts in the country have reported no new cases in the last 14 days. He also said that the government would make sure that these districts maintain the status of no new cases and also, new districts get added into this category.
The Health Ministry revealed the recovery rate of the COVID-19 patients has gone up to 20.57 per cent. On Thursday, the recovery rate was 19.89 per cent.
Punya Salila Srivastava from Union Home Ministry said apart from 6 Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) constituted earlier, Home Ministry today constituted four additional IMCTs, each headed by an Additional Secretary - level officer, to Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad & Chennai.
A robust COVID-19 Surveillance System is closely monitoring over 9 lakh possibly infected people across the country; the sample is taken if symptoms start showing. The Ministry states the surveillance is their primary weapon in the fight against COVID-19.
The Health Minister has requested the Red Cross to ensure sufficient blood stocks by promoting voluntary blood donation and providing facilities for picking up and dropping off, to donors.
The Minister has suggested the Red Cross Society to coordinate with recovered COVID-19 patients who can be mobilized for blood donation, from which convalescent plasma could be used for transfusion to Corona affected patients for early recovery.
The Health Minister also requested the states to ensure to avoid the unnecessary stigma attached to COVID-19. He said that health-seeking behavior in the community should be encouraged so that people seek immediate treatment.
The Health Minister has asked the states to focus on districts reporting high number of cases or having a fast case doubling rate or districts with high case mortality.
The Ministry also highlighted its milestones among which stopping international fights was a crucial one. This step prevented in stopping the further spread of the deadly infection.
The Ministry said the government took suitable steps on time to prohibit the internal community transmission of the disease.