New Delhi: Twenty central public health teams have been constituted and are being deployed in as many affected districts having high case load of COVID-19 in nine states and Delhi to identify the gaps and support them in proper implementation of cluster containment plans and surveillance measures.
According to the Union Health Ministry, these teams will be deployed in 20 districts — Mumbai, Thane, Pune in Maharashtra; Bhopal, Indore in Madhya Pradesh; Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara in Gujarat; South East and Central Districts in Delhi; Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan; Agra and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; Hyderabad in Telangana; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Kolkata in West Bengal; and Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna in Andhra Pradesh. These teams comprising experts from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), AIIMS, JIPMER and All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health among others will submit reports to additional chief secretary/principal secretary/secretary (health) of respective states detailing their observations, areas for improvement and recommendations, according to an office memorandum issued on May 2.
“A decision has been taken in the Ministry of Health to deploy public health teams to assist health departments in managing COVID-19 outbreaks in selected districts,” said an official. The regional directors under the ministry of health in these nine states and one Union Territory will coordinate the deployment of these teams with the state health authorities. All the 20 districts are in the red zone. The ministry has listed 130 districts in the country in ‘red’ zone, 284 in ‘orange’ zone and 319 in ‘green’ zone on the basis of incidence of cases of COVID-19, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback. (PTI)
