BHUBANESWAR: AS Odisha is witnessing a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases, a Central team will be visiting the State to support the efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of the positive cases.
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday decided to deploy high-level Central teams to four States, including Odisha, which are seeing a rapid rise in the number of new cases and some of them are also reporting high mortality. Other states are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
The states have been advised to undertake aggressive measures to ensure higher testing, effective clinical management to lower fatality and save lives along with efficient monitoring at various levels.
The Central team expected to arrive on Tuesday will also guide the State Government in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up. The multi-sectoral team will comprise of an epidemiologist and a public health expert.
Of the four States to be monitored by the Central teams, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum 54,788 active cases, followed by Odisha (25,705), Chhattisgarh (13,520) and Jharkhand (11,577).
Seven states have accounted for 70 per cent (pc) of the new cases registered in the country in last 24 hours. Though Maharashtra has contributed the maximum case load amounting to almost 21 pc, followed by Andhra Pradesh (13.5 pc) and Karnataka (11.27 pc), Uttar Pradesh and Odisha contributed 8.27 pc and 3.84 pc respectively to the increased caseload.
In terms of total confirmed cases so far, while Uttar Pradesh reported 2,30,414 cases and Odisha (1,03,536), Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh registered 38,435 and 30,092 cases respectively. Similarly, the death toll is 3486 in Uttar Pradesh, 545 in Odisha, 410 in Jharkhand and 269 in Chhattisgarh.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health department PK Mohapatra said as an ongoing effort, the Centre has been deputing teams from time to time to visit various States to get a first hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them. “The team will review ongoing activities and suggest measures. We will also place our requirements before the visiting officials and get those addressed. Reducing fatalities further is our priority,” he said.
Meanwhile, the State logged 2602 new cases, a drop by around 15 pc from the previous day despite around 58,000 tests amid flash floods affecting 20 districts. Seven districts contributed more than 100 cases with Khurda recording highest 616 new infections.
A record 4053 patients, highest so far on a single day, from 30 districts recovered on Monday taking the total recoveries to 77,286. Maximum 608 patients in Rayagada, 468 in Cuttack and 370 in Khurda were discharged.
HELPING HAND
The team will guide Odisha Govt in effectively managing challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up
It will review ongoing activities and suggest measures in Covid management