Aditi tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 6
When India overtook Brazil to become the second worst-affected nation in the world by COVID, the government drew up a plan to help states contain the disease.
The Health Ministry has quickly dispatched the core teams to Punjab and UT Chandigarh, which have witnessed a recent increase in cases and high mortality.
The senior teams will help strengthen public health measures for the containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of COVID patients with the goal of reducing mortality and saving lives.
They will also serve as a guide to effectively address challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow-up.
The two-member teams will be comprised of a community medicine expert from PGIMER, Chandigarh and an epidemiologist from NCDC.
These teams will be stationed in the state and UT for ten days to provide extended guidance on managing COVID.
Punjab has reported a total of 60,013 cases, while to date it has 15,731 active cases.
It has registered 1739 deaths. The number of tests per million for the state is 37,546 (the average figure for India is 34,593.1 today).
At 4.97 percent, it is on the lower spectrum of cumulative positivity.
Chandigarh reports 2,095 active cases, while its cumulative cases stand at 5,268. Tests per million and cumulative positivity stand at 38054 and 11.99 percent, respectively.
The Center is actively supporting states that are experiencing a surge in COVID cases and those that are reporting high mortality through attached multi-sectoral core teams. The goal is to reduce overall case mortality to less than 1 pc.
India’s COVID-19 burden today exceeded 41 lakh with a record 90,632 daily infections.
Up to 31,80,865 people have recovered, bringing the national recovery rate to 77.32%.
But the total burden of 41,13,811 with 70,626 deaths (1,065 in 24 hours) has the Center concerned.
