The Union Health Ministry on Friday deputed teams to Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, which have been reporting a surge in the number of new COVID-19 cases in recent days.
A Ministry release said the teams would support the States’ efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing, infection prevention and control measures, and efficient clinical management of the positive cases. They shall also guide in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow-up.
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“Each team comprises a Jt. Secretary (nodal officer for the respective State), one public health expert to look after the public health aspects, one clinician to look after infection prevention practices, clinical management protocol being followed by the State,’’ said the Ministry.
Case fatalities
In the past 24 hours, the country has reported 895 case fatalities, and of these, nearly 82% were concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Delhi. More than 37% of the new fatalities were reported from Maharashtra (337), the Ministry noted.
“India continues to report one of the lowest deaths per million population, which stands at 81 today. Less than 1,100 deaths have been reported continuously since 2nd October. These results are boosted by 22 States/UTs which had demonstrated better performance and are reporting even lower deaths per million compared to the national average. Case fatality rate has been on the downslide continuously. At the current figure of 1.52%, it is the lowest since 22nd March 2020,’’it stated.
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The active cases now comprised 10.92% of the total positive cases of the country standing at 8,04,528. “Higher number of recoveries has aided the national recovery rate to further improve to 87.56%,’’ it added.
