Refocus on strict surveillance, conduct more COVID-19 RT-PCR tests: Centre to states witnessing spike in COVID cases

New Delhi: With a rise in the active caseload over the past few days which has pegged at 1,45,634 on Sunday, the Centre wrote all states and Union Territories and has advised them to improve the overall testing numbers by focusing on increasing the proportion of RT-PCR tests and refocus on strict and comprehensive surveillance as well as stringent containment in selected districts.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a communication with the states, has asked them to conduct regular monitoring of the mutant strains through testing followed by Genome Sequencing, as well as monitoring of the emerging cluster of cases, besides focusing on clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths.

According to the Union Health Ministry, more than 74 percent of the ‘Active Cases’ of the country are in Kerala and Maharashtra. Of late it has been seen that there has been a spike in the daily cases in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh also. Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir too have been witnessing a surge in daily new cases.

In the last four weeks in Kerala, the average weekly cases have fluctuated between a high of 42,000 to a low of 34,800. Similarly, in the last four weeks, the weekly positivity in Kerala has ranged from 13.9 percent to 8.9 percent and the Alappuzha district has a cause of special concern where the weekly ‘Positivity Rate’ has increased to 10.7 percent and weekly cases have increased to 2,833.

During the last four weeks in Maharashtra, the weekly cases have shown a rising trend and have increased from 18,200 to 21,300 while the weekly positivity has also increased from 4.7 percent to 8 percent.

 The areas of concern are the Mumbai Suburban areas where the weekly cases have risen by 19 percent whereas in Nagpur, Amravati, Nashik, Akola and Yavatmal the weekly cases have increased by 33 percent, 47 percent, 23 percent, 55 percent and 48 percent respectively.

Punjab has also rapidly assuming critical dimension in respect of the spread of COVID19 infection. In the last four weeks, the weekly positivity rate has increased from 1.4 percent to 1.6 percent, while the weekly cases in the last four weeks have seen a rise from 1300 to 1682. In one district of SBS Nagar alone, the weekly positivity rate has become 4.9 percent from 3.5 percent and the weekly cases have more than doubled from 165 to 364. (UNI)