Centre to deploy teams in 50 districts with heavy Covid-19 caseload

NEW DELHI: The ministry of health and family welfare would deploy central teams in 50 districts across 15 states with high Covid-19 caseload and spurt in patients.

The multidisciplinary central teams would assist the state governments by providing technical support for containment and facilitate the management of Covid-19 outbreak. The most number of teams would be deployed in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (seven each), Assam (six), Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha (five each), Telangana, Haryana, Karnataka, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (four each) and Gujarat, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Delhi (three each).

The three-member teams are composed of two public health experts or epidemiologists or clinicians and a senior joint secretary-level nodal officer for administrative handholding and improving governance. These teams would be visiting health care facilities to support the state health department in implementation of containment measures and efficient treatment and clinical management of cases within the districts.

According to sources, the 50 districts are largely urban areas. The districts include Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Nagaur, Chennai, Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Arangabad, Palghar, Kolhapur, Solapur, Chengalpattu, Thiruvalluvar, Cuddalore, Ariyalur, Kanchipuram, Villupuram, Kolkata, Howrah, 24 Parganas North, North West Delhi, CentralWest Delhi, NOrth Delhi, Katihar, Darbhanga, Aurangabad, Madhepura, Jaunpur, Gorakhpur, Etawah, Bhadohi, Nainital, Tehri Garhwal, Haridwar, Cuttack, Puri, Kendrapara, Balangir, Nayagarh, Golaghat, Ujjain and Burhanpur.

“The central teams would be assisting the states in addressing some of the challenges faced such as testing bottlenecks, low tests/per million population, high confirmation rates, high testing confirmation rate, risk of capacity shortfall over the next two months, potential bed shortage, growing case fatality rate, high doubling rate and sudden spike in active cases. Many districts have already formalised a dedicated core team at the district level, comprising district level medical and administrative officials to coordinate on a regular basis with the central team.”

The move to closely monitor these districts comes at a time when India has been reporting close to 10,000 cases daily for the last three days. The group of ministers (GoM) on Covid-19 management, headed by health minister Harsh Vardhan, met on Tuesday. Seeing the increase in numbers, this meeting was held through video conferencing. The GoM was briefed about the latest status, response and management of Covid-19 in the country.