NEW DELHI: Starting Wednesday, senior critical care specialists from Delhi AIIMS will start guiding doctors manning intensive care units in Covid hospitals in states.

This arrangement is aimed at reducing Covid 19 case fatality rate in the country, according to the Union health ministry.

Of 7,42,417 confirmed coronavirus cases in India so far, 20,642 have already succumbed to the infection. This means 2.8 per cent of the infected have died of the disease.

The government said that a specialist team of doctors from AIIMS will provide guidance on effective clinical management of Covid-19 patients in the ICUs of different state hospitals through tele or video consultation.

“They will handhold the States in clinical management of Covid-19 patients to reduce the case fatality rate,” said the ministry in a statement.

These teleconsultation sessions for providing timely and expert guidance to the doctors have been planned twice every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

For the Wednesday session, 10 hospitals have been selected, including nine from Mumbai and one from Goa. These hospitals have more than 1000 beds for Covid patients including isolation beds, oxygen support, and ICU beds.

This teleconsultation exercise has also been planned to be extended to another 61 hospitals which have bed capacity ranging from 500-1000 on twice a week basis.

A calendar of these expert-led teleconsultation sessions has been drawn up to cover the 17 States till the month-end. These 17 states are Delhi, Gujarat, Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra.

Up to two doctors handling ICU patients from each hospital along with the Director-General of Health Services of the concerned State will participate in the session.