28 cases of UK variant, new strains reported in Jammu

JAMMU: Intensifying its efforts against the spread of the pandemic, the Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday said that it was working on a five-pronged strategy to contain the contagion and that eight cases of the UK-Covid variant and other new strains had been detected in Jammu but none from Kashmir.

Briefing the media about the situation in the UT, financial commissioner, health and medical education, Atal Dulloo, who was accompanied by principal secretary Rohit Kansal said, “The situation is challenging but not out of control. The J& K administration has made ample preparations to meet the challenge and is working on a five-pronged strategy to restrict the spread of the virus.” “Intense testing, including that of travellers and others suspects, is being done at a rapid pace, followed by containment process, which includes contact tracing and imposing restrictions,” he said, adding that unlike last year, people were being vaccinated against the virus.

“We have 13,400 active cases with a promising recovery rate of 89.6% and mortality rate of 1.38%. There are around 120 containment zones and effective mechanisms for contact tracing are in place. Three state-of-theart Cobas-6800 machines for testing will be installed in premier health institutes shortly. There are around 600 Covid- dedicated ventilators across J&K, of which only 48 are occupied,” he said, adding that 6,000 Category-I Covid beds were available in hospitals, including 10,000 bulk oxygen cylinders and 3,500 medium-sized cylinders.

“The government is in the process of installing 36 oxygen generation plants, of which 23 will be made functional by the end of the week.