Implementing aggressive cluster containment plan in identified COVID 19 hotspots: Centre
NEW DELHI: The Union government on Sunday said that it is now identifying emerging Covid-19 “hotspots” in the country and a rigorous cluster containment strategy was being implemented on a war footing as the total number of confirmed cases crossed the 1,000 mark.
Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare said that Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba held meetings with the chief secretaries of all states in the last 24 hours to review the situation and for the effective implementation of containment measures.
Though Agarwal did not name any state in the briefing, a look at the state data available at the ministry website suggests that Maharashtra and Kerala are the top two states with the most number of infected patients.
States such as Karnataka, Telangana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh too are not far behind and cases in these states are over 50 each.
The announcement by the Centre on cluster containment plan came as the government confirmed India’s tally of positive cases at 979 with 25 death and said that 106 new cases and 6 deaths had been recorded in 24 hours.
The 6 new deaths have been recorded in six different states and all of the victims were elderly with co-morbidities like cardiac issues, diabetes, previous respiratory issues or kidney-related ailments.
On Saturday the Indian Council of Medical Research had said that it had found evidence for early-stage community transmission in high viral density areas.
On Sunday, the health ministry reiterated that it was pulling all stops to upgrade healthcare logistics including procurement and manufacturing of personal protective equipment, masks, sanitizes and also the separation of the treatment facilities for coronavirus cases across states.
Agarwal said that states have been told to ensure there is no intermingling of non-COVID 19 patients with the infected ones and the process of shifting non-infected patients to other hospitals has begun as the creation of dedicated facilities for Covid-19 cases picks up pace across the country.
Dr R R Gangakhedkar, chief epidemiologist with the ICMR said that nearly 35,000 tests have been carried out so far and the tests are now being carried out through 113 government labs across India while 47 private labs or lab chains.