Kerala has highest active COVID-19 cases in India, Union govt to send team

With Kerala reporting a “very high” number of daily COVID-19 cases in the country, the Union government has decided to send a high level team to support public health interventions for COVID-19 management in the state, the Health Ministry announced on Wednesday. The team headed by the Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr SK Singh, will reach Kerala on Friday. "Kerala has been reporting a very high number of daily new COVID-19 cases since the past many days," the Union Health Ministry said, adding that the team will reach the state day after tomorrow.

During the last seven days, a total of 35,038 new cases were logged in Kerala, and around 5,000 new cases are added daily to the state's COVID-19 tally, it said.

"The team will review the public health interventions in management of COVID-19 by the state government of Kerala and support state health authorities in these measures," it said.

The Union government has been deputing teams from time to time as an ongoing effort to strengthen efforts of various state and union territory (UT) governments for COVID-19 management.

These teams interact with state and UT authorities and get a first hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks, if any, the ministry stated.

According to the data published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Kerala has the highest number of active cases in the country, standing at over 63,000. While Maharashtra also trails back with over 50,000 cases, the rest of the states have comparatively very low active COVID-19 cases. Meanwhile, it is also notable that Kerala’s total death toll remains at 3,184, which is much lower when compared with many other states. Maharashtra’s death toll stands at 49,759, while Tamil Nadu’s at 12,177.

COVID-19 was first reported in India in Kerala, in January last year when students from China’s Wuhan, where the virus outbreak was reported for the first time in the world.

On Wednesday, Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja said two more returnees from the United Kingdom (UK) tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours ending at 2 pm.

So far 43 people who had returned to the state from the UK tested positive for COVID-19 and six of them have been found with the new mutated strain of the virus, detected in the European nation recently, she said.

Samples of those who travelled from the UK and tested positive for COVID-19 are examined at the National Institute of Virology in Pune to ascertain whether they carry the new strain.

In the last 24 hours, a total of 63,891 samples were tested and the test positivity rate was 10.01%