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| Cyclone: Government Issues Guidelines For Coastal Areas |
The government warned that the public health challenges already posed by the Covid-19 pandemic may be compounded because of health risks posed in terms of waterborne, vector-borne, and air-borne diseases in camps/temporary shelter settings.
Some of the key points issued by the health ministry include:
1. Activate the health sector incident command system and emergency operation center/control room. Identify a nodal officer and convey his contact details to the health ministry.
2. Activate health sector DM plan and the hospital disaster management plan of all the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, Andaman Islands, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
3. The district surveillance units and public health teams mobilized for Covid management need also to be reoriented on the outbreak of epidemic-prone diseases such as influenza, measles, acute diarrhoeal diseases, dysentery, leptospirosis, dengue, malaria.
4. Health facilities, at all levels, in the affected areas including those identified for Covid treatment need to be made fully functional with additional human resources drawn from unaffected districts.
5.The funds provided to manage Covid, NHM Flexi funds or that available under disaster response fund (as per norms) may be utilized to bridge fund requirement, among others.
The order also said that the health ministry is ready to extend all the support required by state governments in managing the situation.