Zero COVID deaths recorded in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland & Sikkim, says Health Ministry

Guwahati: The Union Health Ministry confirmed today that no COVID-19 related deaths have been reported in the Northeast Indian states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Sikkim.

In a release, the Ministry said that the Centre has pro-actively and strongly supported the strengthening of the medical care infrastructure in the NE States to fight COVID-19, while adding that these 8 states have a comparatively lower number of COVID-19 cases compared to the rest of the country. As depicted in the table below, as on date, while the active cases are 3731, the recoveries exceed this at 5,715.

"A critical pillar which hampered the efforts of the NE states in combating was the COVID-19 outbreak was complete lack of testing facilities. But today, because of the focussed attention of the Centre through the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, the NE has 39 testing labs in the public sector and three in the private sector, totalling to 42 labs", the Ministry said in a statement.

The NE States also suffered from an acute lack of dedicated COVID Hospitals, COVID Health Centres and COVID care Centres. With the help of the Centre, the healthcare infrastructure across all the NE states has been substantially supplemented, the Ministry said, pointing out that to date, 60 COVID dedicated hospitals have been opened up across the region. If one is to add the dedicated COVID Health Centers and dedicated COVID center into the mix, the facility adds up to 1,518.

Meanwhile, India on Friday registered its biggest single-day increase in COVID-19 cases, recording 17,296 infections in the last 24 hours, while the number of fatalities has risen to 15,301. 407 deaths have been reported in the past 24 hours.

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