The symptoms of the virus include fever, headache, vomiting and fainting. Some may show symptoms of epilepsy. The symptoms may last 10-12 days followed by unconsciousness and death as a result of brain fever, the advisory said.

The registration process for hospitals are expected to begin by June 15, while the States will be in charge of the bidding process for insurance companies in a couple of weeks,” said Indu Bhushan, chief executive of Ayushman Bharat adding that the scheme will be ready for a roll-out by August.

“We have proposed that the insurance companies will have to mandatorily refund the excess premium if the claim ratio turns out to be less than 85 percent under this project. This will ensure that insurance agencies do not have windfall gain from the ambitious scheme which aims at supporting the poorest 40 percent of the population for expenditure on health treatment,” said Bhushan .

The PMSSY, which is a central sector scheme, aims at correcting the imbalances in the availability of affordable tertiary health care facilities in different parts of the country in general, and augmenting facilities for quality medical education in the under-served states in particular.

The WHO report said the other Indian cities that registered very high PM2.5 levels and constituted the top 14 were Kanpur, Faridabad, Gaya, Patna, Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur.

“As an extension of the central government’s Ayushman Bharat scheme,we are in the process of identifying two community health centres in each district. Their land, about three acres each, will be given on a long-term lease to private company which will construct a 100-bed hospital, along with an operation theatre and diagnostic centre,” he said. The project is likely to begin from November this year.

“We want all the participating players including insurers, hospitals and other health care providers to have moderate amount of profit but not brutal profiteering at the cost of state exchequer.I think for this mission to be successful it has to be viable business and the intent is that we should have package rates and costing which is fair for the health sector as a whole and it is fair national exchequer,’’ said Paul  

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