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New Delhi: Amid the rise in Covid cases in India, the Centre on Thursday wrote to six states asking them to focus on controlling the sudden increase in the viral infection. The Union Health Secretary wrote to Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka asking them to stress on testing, treating, tracking, and vaccination.
“There are few states which are reporting a higher number of cases indicating the possible localised spread of infection and there is a need to follow a risk assessment-based approach to prevent & contain the infection, without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic,” the letter said.
The letter further added that it is essential that the state must maintain a strict watch and take pre-emptive action if required in any areas of concern to control emerging spread of infection. The letter advised states to examine the situation of Covid at micro level (district and sub-districts), and maintain focus on implementation of necessary measures for prompt and effective management of Covid-19, “duly ensuring effective compliance with various advisories issued by this ministry”.
He also stressed on genomic sequencing for prescribed samples of international passengers, collection of samples from sentinel sites (identified health facilities), and local clusters of cases, proactive promotion to increase administration of precaution dose for all eligible beneficiaries and following Covid-appropriate behaviour particularly in enclosed spaces and in crowded spaces.
“It is essential that the state must maintain a strict watch and take pre-emptive action if required in any areas of concern to control emerging spread of infection,” Bhushan said.
He mentioned that Maharashtra has reported an increase in weekly cases from 355 in the week ending March 8 to 668 in the week ending March 15. Further, the state reported a positivity rate of 1.92 per cent in the week ending March 15 which is higher than India’s positivity rate of 0.61 per cent during the same period.
More than 700 COVID-19 cases were recorded in a day after a gap of over four months, taking the active caseload to 4,623, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.
The country had recorded 734 cases on November 12 last year.
Continuing with its recent upward trend, a total of 754 new coronavirus cases were reported in a span of 24 hours, while the death toll has increased to 5,30,790 with one fatality reported by Karnataka, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The total tally of Covid cases reported so far has reached 4.46 crore (4,46,92,710).
Active cases now comprise 0.01 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.80 per cent, according to the health ministry website.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,57,297, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.
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