Amid surge in daily coronavirus cases, Health Ministry asks states, UTs to 'test, track and treat'

Amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Union Health Secretary and Dr. Vinod K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog on Saturday asked the Health Secretaries and MDs (NHM) of Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and UTs of Delhi and Chandigarh to 'test, track and treat' to contain coronavirus. These states and UTs have in the recent past have seen increased positivity and an increased number of daily positive cases. Also Read | Coronavirus India: Centre rushes high-level teams to Maharashtra and Punjab They reviewed the ongoing public health measures of surveillance, containment, and management of coronavirus cases in wake of the steep rise in daily new cases of COVID and the high number of active caseload being reported from these eight States and UTs. It was pointed out that 9 districts in Delhi, 15 in Haryana, 10 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 in Odisha, 9 in Himachal Pradesh, 7 in Uttarakhand, 2 in Goa, 1 in Chandigarh continue to be of concern seeing a decrease in total tests of coronavirus being conducted. Also Read | Coronavirus Punjab: Amid rise in COVID-19 cases, this district announces night curfew States were specifically asked to:

• Continue with the effective strategy of ‘Test Track & Treat’ that had yielded rich dividends at the height of the pandemic.
• Improve overall testing in districts reporting a 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 that are seeing a cluster of cases.
• Carry out an average close contact tracing of a 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 a maximum of 28 days at a time.
• Promote COVID-appropriate behaviour through communication and enforcement.

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