NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to send a high-level team of experts under National Centre for Disease Control director Dr S K Singh to Jammu which has been witnessing a spurt of Covid-19 cases over the last few days.
The team will have Dr Vijay Hadda, professor of pulmonary critical care at AIIMS-Delhi as its other member.
This comes after a special team led by Dr V K Paul, member (health), NITI Aayog visited Srinagar recently. The team had reviewed the status of preparedness for Covid-19 management with the district collectors of the valley.
The current central team has been mandated to interact with the DCs and health officials in Jammu and also visit hospitals in Bakshinagar and Gandhinagar.
“The team will support the state efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of the positive cases,” said a statement by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. “The central team will also guide in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up.”
The total number of confirmed COVID cases in Jammu is 9,428 as of now of which 3,196 have recovered.
Total infection deaths are reported to be 117 and there are 6115 active cases in the district. The total cases one week ago were 6,878.
As per the government figures, Jammu has been reporting a doubling time of 15.4 days while the recovery rate is 33.9 % and the case fatality rate stands at 1.24%.
The ministry maintained that as an ongoing effort to strengthen efforts of various state/UT governments for Covid management, the Union government has been deputing central teams from time to time.
“These teams interact with the state or UT authorities and get a first-hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks if any,” it added.