10 Odisha districts matter of concern in wake of upsurge in daily Covid positive cases: Centre

New Delhi: The Centre today asked six states including Odisha and two Union Territories to continue with the strategy of ‘Test Track & Treat’ in view of upsurge in Covid cases and high number of active caseload.

During a meeting Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Vinod K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog directed Health Secretaries and MDs (NHM) of Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand States and UTs of Delhi and Chandigarh to take the following measures:

• Continue with the effective strategy of ‘Test Track & Treat’ that yielded rich dividends at the height of the pandemic.

• Improve overall testing in districts reporting reduction in testing

• Increase share of RT-PCR tests in districts dependent on high levels of antigen testing.

• Refocus on surveillance and stringent containment of those areas in selected districts which are seeing cluster of cases.

• Carry out an average close contact tracing of minimum of 20 persons per positive case.

• Focus on clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths.

• Actuate their health infrastructure to provide effective clinical management to all the patients as a surge in cases also affects the case fatality rate in those districts.

• Accelerate vaccination for priority population groups in districts reporting higher cases.

• Make optimal use of the available vaccine doses and focus on critical districts.

• To collaborate with the private hospitals to open up vaccination time-table for a minimum of 15 days and maximum of 28 days at a time.

• Promote COVID-appropriate behaviour through communication and enforcement.

• Stress was laid on prompt isolation and on medical supervision of those active cases presently in home isolation for early identification of progressive deterioration of the disease. The States were also asked actively watch out for super-spreading events and share their best practices in breaking the chain of transmission.

In a detailed presentation, it was pointed out that 10 districts in Odisha, nine districts in Delhi, 15 in Haryana, 10 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 in Odisha, nine in Himachal Pradesh, seven in Uttarakhand, two in Goa, one in Chandigarh continue to be of concern as these districts are seeing a decrease in total tests being conducted, low share of RT-PCR tests, increase in weekly positivity and low number of contact tracing of the COVID positive cases.

These eight states and UTs together can pose high risk of transmission to the neighbouring States and UTs, the government stated.

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