Manipur Health department urges people to strictly adhere COVID-19 SOP during festival

Manipur Health department on Saturday cautioned that person to person contact events during the festival can become “super spreader” of COVID-19 if proper preventive measures are not taken up.

Attending a press conference at the chief minister’s secretariat on Saturday evening,  principal secretary (Health and Family Welfare), V Vumlunmang said that the pandemic is still not over.

Events like Thabal Chongba, Jatrawali (courtyard play) and musical concerts involving person to person contact during the festival can become “super spreader”, he warned.

Presently, in some states of the country including Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat, the infection from COVID-19 was still a major public health problem.

Moreover, new strains of COVID-19 –UK strain, Brazil strain, etc. were also emerging to add to the existing international health issue posed by COVID-19, he said.

He then urged Yaoshang sports organisers, parents, youths and people from all walks of life to adhere to protocol and preventive measures during the festival.

Regarding the ongoing vaccination drive for COVID-19 in the state, he said that it was progressing well and around 65% of health workers had been vaccinated against COVID-19 so far. 

The testing of passengers arriving from eight states, where the number    of positive cases was going up alarmingly, was being done at the Imphal Airport, he added.

Meanwhile, Manipur’s COVID-19 infection tally surged to 29,376 on Saturday with three fresh cases recorded in the past 24 hours even as there was no report of death due to the pandemic during the same period.

The three persons were coming from other states and tested positive during RAT (Rapid Antigen Test) at Imphal Airport where passengers coming from second wave hit states were being screened.

They were one each from Senapati, Imphal East and Bishnupur district, said the daily update report of the state Health department.

The report added that five patients were discharged upon recovery on Saturday, taking the cumulative number of recoveries in the state to 28,944.
The number of active cases stood at 58 and the recovery rate at 98.52%, the report added.
As no death related to the viral disease was reported from any part of the state in the past 24 hours, the fatality tally stood at 374.
As per the latest information, the number of people vaccinated in the state on Saturday was 868 and the cumulative number of vaccinated people was 85,103. The number included 31,537.