CS reviews admin efforts towards safeguarding Badhal residents

JAMMU : Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo on Thursday again chaired a meeting of all the concerned from Health and Police Departments along with the representatives of nationally reputed institutions to take assessment of the efforts made to safeguard the lives there besides identifying the causes behind these deaths.

The meeting besides Principal Secretary, Home and Secretary, H&ME was attended by ADGP, CID; Divisional Commissioner, Jammu; IGP, Jammu; IGP, CID; DC, Rajouri; SSP, Rajouri; Principal, GMC Jammu and other local health experts.
It was also joined by Director, AIIMS; Director, PGIMER, Chandigarh; DG, ICMR; Director, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (IITR), Lucknow; Director, CFSL; Experts from National Institute of Virology (NIV), DRD, Gawalior and experts from other reputed laboratories carrying out investigation of the samples sent by the Health Department.
Dulloo took this occasion to impress upon the concerned not to lower their guard and take samples of fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides used locally to identify the root cause of these deaths. He also asked for augmentation of facilities in the local hospitals so that these are well equipped to deal with any such eventuality in future.
He directed for carrying out audit of the health facilities to examine the need of adding more ICU beds, oxygen plants, isolation wards in addition to availability of specific drugs and specialists there.
The Chief Secretary also urged the AIIMS, New Delhi to extend their support in enhancing the capacity of the local medics here for dealing with such situations. He also suggested for sending some doctors there for specialized training and also sending some experts from there to build capacity of many more here in the hospitals of the UT.
He also talked to the Heath experts from different national institutions and sought their suggestions for adopting the future course of action. He simultaneously directed the Law Enforcement Agencies to conclude their investigations in light of the test reports received from these institutions and the ones which are yet to come.
The Secretary H&ME, Dr Syed Abid Rashid Shah informed the meeting that every measure has been taken to isolate the families and provide them food and water after testing the same. He further informed about the drugs and medical teams that had been made available locally at PHC Kandi and GMC Rajouri.
The Secretary also gave out that out of the 55 symptomatic persons 38 were discharged after recovery and 17 deaths had been registered so far. He revealed that there are currently no admissions in any of the hospitals and patients had even been examined by teams of doctors from PGIMER, Chandigarh and AIIMS, New Delhi here.
It was further given out that the health teams are stationed there to keep surveillance for any of the symptoms appearing in any person with whole population of the village screened by healthcare providers.
The Divisional Commissioner, Jammu informed the meeting that it is ensured that no food or eatables are exchanged as the families had been removed from their homes and kept under continuous surveillance.
He informed the meeting that at present 363 souls from 60 different families had been quarantined with 592 animals being tended by the officials from Animal and Sheep Husbandry Departments to safeguard their lives.