Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Thursday said Karaikal region would soon have a separate lab for testing swabs collected from people to identify prevalence of COVID-19.
The Chief Minister camped at Karaikal and held a meeting through video conference with officials of various departments along with Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao and other ministers. During the meeting, he said the lab was essential for Karaikal to facilitate more testing. Presently, the territorial government is sending the swabs to the lab in a government medical college hospital in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. "It takes some days to get the results of testing from Tiruvarur district," he told reporters from Karaikal through video mode.
"We have therefore felt the need to have a separate lab in Karaikal and this would be set up in a week or two. The separate lab would also help the government carry on more examination of the swabs to prevent spread of the pandemic in Karaikal," the Chief Minister said. Charging the Centre with not providing funds to Puducherry, Narayanasamy said, "we have to depend on our revenue mobilised through State level taxes. Hence a cordial approach with the traders and merchants is absolutely necessary in the present situation.
" He said Karaikal region now had 27 patients hit by COVID-19. Although it is not a big number for 2.5 lakh population in Karaikal we should not be lax and should intensify our work to ensure that the region emerged COVID-19 free soon.
The government would provide funds to the health department from out of the COVID-19 fund and health professionals engaged in handling the patients would also be taken care of, he added. He said that there were 27 containment zones in the region. Vegetables, groceries and rice would be distributed to the residents in these zones. He appreciated the work done by District Administration since last three months in Karaikal.
Meanwhile, Lt Governor Kiran Bedi asked men and women in families to adopt basic hygiene diktats and adhere to norms such as wearing of masks while going out, maintaining social distancing and washing hands. In her video address to the people the former IPS officer said, "precaution and prevention is much safer than treatment as treatment may or may not help one recover till a medicine is found." She also appealed to women to adopt the same precautions in the larger interest of safety of elderly persons and children in their families.
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