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TRIPURA: Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb has asked people to use Jal Gamcha as a precaution alternative to mask in addition to maintaining social distancing against spreading COVID-19.
He sent out a tweet on this:
https://twitter.com/BjpBiplab/status/1243503260167618561
It is important to note that there has been shortage of masks among health workers who need to have them before anyone, as they are the ones who are dealing with the pandemic directly.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), wearing a medical mask is one of the prevention measures to limit the spread of certain respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, in affected areas.
However, the use of a mask alone is insufficient to provide the adequate level of protection and other equally relevant measures should be adopted.
If masks are to be used, this measure must be combined with hand hygiene and other infection prevention and control (IPC) measures to prevent the human-to-human transmission of the disease.
India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also recently issued guidelines to increase awareness about the use of masks.
The guidelines emphasise that medical masks should not be used by healthy persons who are not having any symptoms because it can create a false sense of security that can lead to neglecting other essential measures such as washing of hands.
“Further, there is no scientific evidence to show health benefit of using masks for non-sick persons in the community. In fact, erroneous use of masks or continuous use of a disposable mask for longer than 6 hours or repeated use of same mask may actually increase risk of getting an infection. It also incurs unnecessary cost,” it added.
Amid the rapid spread of coronavirus cases, there has been a mad rush to buy and stock medical masks in several countries including India. But does everybody need to wear a mask to protect themselves from the disease? And even if you need to, what are the right procedures to follow?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), wearing a medical mask is one of the prevention measures to limit the spread of certain respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, in affected areas.
However, the use of a mask alone is insufficient to provide the adequate level of protection and other equally relevant measures should be adopted.
If masks are to be used, this measure must be combined with hand hygiene and other infection prevention and control (IPC) measures to prevent the human-to-human transmission of the disease.
India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also recently issued guidelines to increase awareness about the use of masks.
The guidelines emphasise that medical masks should not be used by healthy persons who are not having any symptoms because it can create a false sense of security that can lead to neglecting other essential measures such as washing of hands.