New Delhi: As two states have witnessed a spike in coronavirus cases, the Central government on Friday wrote a letter to Kerala and Maharashtra and asked the states to adopt five-fold strategy to control the COVID spike. Targeted testing in containment zones and genomic surveillance are among the measures that have been suggested by the Centre to Kerala and Maharashtra amid a surge in COVID cases.
In a letter to the Kerala chief secretary on Friday, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the state has witnessed a sustained and significant transmission of COVID-19 since July. Kerala has reported an average of 13,500 cases per day in July and almost 19,500 daily cases in August.
Kerala remains top contributor: The Centre said that Kerala remains one of the top contributors in terms of daily cases and is accounting for more than half of the active Covid cases in the country at present.
“Despite efforts by the state government on increasing testing, the test confirmation percentage still remains very high (more than 15 per cent), signalling high and widespread transmission. All 14 districts in Kerala have been identified as districts of concern due to high test positivity rates and high case per million reported in the past four weeks,” he added.
Further, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Ernakulam have reported more than 4,000 cases per million (10 lakh) population in the week ending August 25, the Union health secretary pointed out.
Copy of the letter:
Define containment zones: Bhushan said the Covid containment zones in the state need to be defined with a special focus on the high-transmission clusters.
“Such zones need to be re-defined if the proportion of cases being reported outside of containment zones is showing an increase. Buffer zone around the containment zone needs to be identified clearly and passive surveillance needs to be enhanced to detect any spillover of cases from the containment zone,” he said.
He said the contact-tracing efforts should further be scaled up to ensure that at least 20-25 contacts per positive case are identified and all contacts thus identified are put under quarantine.
Ensure strict compliance to guidelines: “The district administration needs to ensure strict compliance to MoHFW’s home isolation guidelines and ensure that there is intensive follow up of all such cases under home isolation. Enforcement of COVID-appropriate behaviour needs to be further intensified,” the Union health secretary said.
He stressed on avoidance of mass gatherings and said it needs to be enforced by the district administration. On testing, he said the current positivity rate is high, mandating a further increase in the number of tests conducted to detect the infection, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
“Targeted testing needs to be enhanced in containment zones and especially to cover high-risk contacts,” Bhushan said. He also said Kerala should ensure enhanced genomic surveillance in areas of high and sustained transmission.
Impose local restrictions: On the other hand, the Centre advised Maharashtra to consider imposing local restrictions on the festivals and mass gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
In a letter to the Maharashtra chief secretary, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said even though the trajectory of daily new cases has shown a decline over the last month, there are some districts in Maharashtra which are showing early signs of an upsurge in COVID-19 cases and test positivity
Bhushan said the directions were issued under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 by the Home Ministry for focussed containment measures.
“In light of this order, and in view of mass events and public gatherings expected during celebration of upcoming festivals (including Dahi Handi and Ganpati Utsav) in Maharashtra, it is advised that the state may consider imposing and enforcing local restrictions in public observation of these festivals and mass gatherings,” Bhushan said.
