India’s total tally of Covid-19 cases rose to 3,17,69,132 and the active caseload increased to 4,10,353, according to data updated by the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday, as 42,625 people tested positive for the Covid infection in a day.Taking the death toll to 4,25,757 with 562 fatalities.
The number of active cases increased to 4,10,353 and accounted for 1.29 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate rose to 97.37 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.
An increase of 5,395 cases has been recorded in the active caseload in a span of 24 hours. As many as 18,47,518 samples were tested on Tuesday taking the number of tests conducted so far for detection of Covid-19 in the country to 47,31,42,307.
The daily positivity rate stood at 2.31 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.36 per cent, according to the ministry. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,09,33,022, while the case fatality rate stood at 1.34 per cent, according to the data.
Meanwhile, amid the ongoing cases of Covid in the country, Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Wendesday, said children up to 18 years will be provided free health insurance of Rs.5 lakhs under Ayushman Bharat and its premium will be paid by PM Care. The Union Minister tweeted, “As part of the steps taken to take care of children affected by #COVID19, children up to 18 years will be provided free health insurance of Rs.5 lakhs under Ayushman Bharat and its premium will be paid by PM Care.”
Ayushman Bharat is a health protection scheme to provide health insurance to citizens. It provides insurance coverage of up to Rs.5 lakh on a family floater basis to beneficiaries every year in order to receive primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare services. The scheme was earlier referred to as AB-NHPS as it is an initiative under the existing National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS). Currently, it is known as Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). The government plans to distribute this scheme through national insurance companies. The scheme subsumes the existing senior citizen health insurance scheme as well as the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana.
The ministry claims that PMJAY will provide cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service. It will help reduce catastrophic expenditure for hospitalizations, which impoverishes people and will help mitigate the financial risk arising out of catastrophic health episodes.
The beneficiary families under AB-PMJAY have been identified on the basis of select deprivation and occupational criteria in rural and urban areas respectively as per SECC 2011 database.
This covers approximately 10.74 crore families (50 crore people). Further, the States/UTs implementing AB-PMJAY have extended the coverage of the scheme to 13.17 crore families (approx. 65 crore people).
When the scheme was launched, the Ministry of Health had said that Ayushman Bharat would provide a cover of up to Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year, for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization. It said that over 10.74 crore vulnerable entitled families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) will be eligible for these benefits.
The objective of the scheme is to ensure comprehensive care and protection of children in a sustained manner, and enable their well-being through health insurance, empower them through education and equip them for self-sufficient existence with financial support on reaching 23 years of age.
