The Union Health Ministry will deploy Central teams to to Punjab and Union Territory of Chandigarh for ten days to provide extended guidance in managing COVID-19. The two-member teams will comprise a community medicine expert from PGIMER, Chandigarh and an epidemiologist from NCDC.
The teams will assist the state/UT in strengthening public health measures for containment, surveillance, testing and clinical management of COVID patients with the aim to reduce mortality. They will also guide in addressing challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up.
Union Health Secretary held a review meeting through video conference (VC) with the Health Secretaries of 5 States and 1 UT on the containment and management of COVID in 35 districts under their jurisdiction.
These 35 districts comprise Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and 24 South Parganas in West Bengal; Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Raigad, Jalgaon, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Aurangabad, Dhule and Nanded in Maharashtra; Surat in Gujarat; Pondicherry in Puducherry; East Singhbhum in Jharkhand; and all 11 districts in Delhi.
In addition to the State Health Secretaries, District Collectors, Municipal Commissioners and other functionaries of the affected districts also participated in the digital meeting.
Addressing the participants, the Union Secretary underscored the need to suppress, curb and eventually break the chain of transmission of the infectious disease by strengthening the active case search focusing on the comorbids and elderly population; revisiting and strengthening the containment measures in the affected areas; and scaling up the testing to decrease the positivity rates below 5%.
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