NEW DELHI: The Centre advised Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal & Assam to urgently ramp up testing, strictly implement containment plan and augment health infrastructure, during an interaction with the states that went on till late Friday evening.
A high level virtual review meeting was chaired by Cabinet Secretary with the Chief Secretaries and Health Secretaries of the nine states that are driving the present spurt of the active caseload in the country.
These nine states have, in the recent past, shown high rise in daily number of active cases and are emerging as concern areas from COVID management point of view, said the government. Areas of concern with respect to low testing in certain states was highlighted in the meeting. The centre reiterated that sustained and aggressive testing is crucial for early identification of cases and to prevent spread of infection.
“Cabinet Secretary had a detailed review on the State specific COVID response strategy with the Health Secretaries and other State officials as well as on the factors that were leading to rising case-load in these States in recent times,” said a government statement.
In keeping with the “Test Track Treat” strategy, the States were advised to ramp up the testing with special focus on containment zones.
The Cabinet Secretary stressed the need for “prompt and proper delineation of containment zones” as per the guidelines of the health Ministry, intensive contact tracing and house-to-house active case search within the Containment Zones so as to effectively break the chain of transmission.
A thrust was made on identifying Buffer zones outside the Containment Zones with continued surveillance.
“States were advised to have a clear focus on health infrastructure availability including requisite number of beds, oxygen and ventilators across the State with implementation of clinical protocols ensuring the prescribed Quality of Care and seamless patient management.”
In a significant assertion, the Government said that effective ambulance management with zero refusal rate is crucial.
The Cabinet Secretary stressed on mapping of high-risk population , particularly the elderly with comorbidities, to keep the mortality rate low.