The Health Ministry on Friday held a review meeting of COVID-19 management and response in 15 districts across five States exhibiting high caseload and fatality.
At the meeting, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan spoke with senior health officials of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and identified the districts of Chittoor, Prakasam, Mysuru, Bengaluru Urban, Ballari, Koppal, Dakshina Kannada, Davangere, Ludhiana, Patiala, Chennai, Coimbatore, Salem, Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar which, he noted, needed urgent attention.
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“These areas have been exhibiting higher active caseload, fatality rates and a surge in the COVID-19 cases for the past four weeks”, said Mr. Bhushan.
Detailed road maps
In a release issued by the Health Ministry, it said that these areas have been issued detailed road maps and action plans for the next one month.
“The States were advised to limit and eventually break the spread of the infection by implementing stringent containment measures and following social distancing measures, strict perimeter control, and active house-to-house case search. It has also been asked to ensure early identification by ramping up testing across the districts, optional utilization of RT-PCR testing capacity and use of Rapid Antigen Tests as a screening test in hotspots and densely populated areas,’’ said the Ministry.
The States have also been directed to effectively monitor home isolation cases and early hospitalisation in case of disease progression.
