Vijayawada: Health and family welfare commissioner K. Bhaskar said on Friday there is no shortage of medicines in Andhra Pradesh and the state is keeping stocks of 10-15 per cent more medicines than are required.
Addressing the media here, he said Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had accepted a proposal to fill up 14,200 posts in the health department. Apart from this, the health department has filled up nearly 9,000 special posts of health personnel for Covid care.
He also said the health department has introduced a web-based application for the drug warehouse and supply chain management, called ‘e-Aushadhi’, to the sub-centre level. “After linking it to telemedicine, we got good results in ensuring adequate supplies of drugs as per requirement to health centres in the state,” he said.
“We have given the nod to procure all kinds of medicines through web-based application, as this would also help find out the availability of anti-venom online. There is also a provision to move the facility from place to place, based on requirement.”
Referring to the spread of dengue cases, the commissioner admitted that the number has gone up in the state at present compared to last year, and added that the department was carrying out a door-to-door survey to get “real-time” information on its spread.
He said that following the heavy rainfall in the state, the spread of dengue was high and added that the health department was carrying out an awareness campaign on dengue. Dengue, he said, is more prevalent in urban centres than rural areas. Nearly 85 per cent of the cases were found in Greater Visakhapatnam municipal corporation limits.
The commissioner said the department was taking all requisite measures to contain the spread of dengue, malaria, chikungunya etc.
