Amid uptick in Covid-19 cases, Centre writes to six states to take pre-emptive action

NEW DELHI: As Covid-19 cases are seeing an uptick, the Centre on Thursday wrote to six states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Telangana, to maintain a strict watch and to take pre-emptive action to control the emerging spread of the virus.

The union health ministry directed the six states, which also included Gujarat and Maharashtra, to carry out testing, monitor new and emerging clusters of new Covid-19 cases and to monitor Influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infection, which is also rapidly surging across India.

In a letter, union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said India has observed a significant decline in the number of Covod-19 cases during the past few months.

“However, since the past few weeks a rise in cases has been noted specifically in certain parts of the country with a total of 2,082 cases reported in the week ending March 8 which rose to 3,264 cases in the week ending March 15.”

He said these states are reporting higher numbers of cases indicating the possible localized spread of infection.

The health secretary said there is a need to follow a risk-assessment-based approach to prevent and contain the infection, without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic.

He asked all six states to examine the Covid-19 situation at the micro-level – districts and sub-districts – and maintain focus on implementation of necessary measures for prompt and effective management of Covid-19.

Bhushan also said that the five-fold strategy of test-track-treat-vaccination and following Covid appropriate behaviour should be followed and asked the states to focus on genomic sequencing for prescribed samples of international passengers, and collection of samples from sentinel sites.

“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 the emerging spread of infection," the letter said.

Seven districts in Maharashtra, including Pune, Mumbai and Thane, are recording a high number of Covid-19 cases. Similarly, in Gujarat, seven districts, including Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat, are reporting an increase in the cases in the past few weeks.

The ministry said analysis of Telangana showed that most of the cases are being reported from Hyderabad district.

In Tamil Nadu, four districts – Salem, the Nilgiris, Tiruppur and Tiruchirappali – are reporting an increase in Covid-19 cases, while Kerala has reported an increase in Covid-19 cases from six districts, including Ernakulam, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Thrissur and Palakkad.

Four districts in Karnataka - Shivamogga, Kalaburagi, Mysuru and Uttara Kannada - are reporting increased weekly cases, the ministry said.