Centre rushes expert teams to 6 states reporting rise in COVID-19 cases

The Centre has dispatched six high-level multi-disciplinary public health teams to six states still reporting a high turnout of COVID cases. The teams will assist Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Manipur in the pandemic control and containment measures, the Health Ministry said on Friday (July 2).

The two-member high-level team to these states consists of a clinician and a public health expert.

“The team to Manipur will be led by Dr. L Swasticharan, Additional DDG & Director EMR; team to Arunachal Pradesh will be led by Dr. Sanjay Sadhukhan, Professor AIIH&PH; for Tripura Dr. RN Sinha Dir Professor, AIIH&PH; for Kerala Dr. Ruchi Jain, Public Health Specialist Gr. II, RoHFW; for Odisha Dr. A Dan, Public Health Specialist AIIH&PH and for Chhattisgarh Dr. Dibakar Sahu, Assistant Professor, AIIMS Raipur,” the ministry said.

Also read: After a year of seesaw COVID battle, here’s why Kerala is still vulnerable

With no satisfactory dip in COVID cases, the Kerala government on Tuesday (June 29) decided to extend lockdown restrictions for one more week. The state reported 13,550 new cases on June 29, taking the cumulative cases to 29,10,507 while the toll mounted to 13,093 with the addition of 104 recent deaths.

These teams will be supporting the respective states in their efforts for targeted Covid response and management, and in effectively tackling the pandemic, it said.

“The teams will visit the states immediately and monitor the overall implementation of COVID-19 management, especially in testing, including surveillance and containment operations; COVID appropriate behaviour and its enforcement; availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators, medical oxygen etc., and COVID-19 vaccination progress. The teams will monitor the situation and also suggest remedial actions,” it said.

Also read: Numbers rising: North East could be the next COVID hotspot

In the North-East the official data for June 16-23 showed that nine districts from the region had a TPR of more than 50 per cent. This means that at least one person turned out to be positive out of every two persons tested. On the other hand, a total of 22 districts have TPR more than 20 per cent. Arunachal Pradesh has 13 of its districts in this group.

The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of districts in the North-East is showing an alarming trend. TPR is the number of positive patients per hundred tests conducted. It is one of the vital metrics of assessment of the spread of the pandemic in a specific region.