Cases doubling fast in Ghaziabad, health department to focus on reducing death rate

Ghaziabad on Saturday stood second in Uttar Pradesh in number of active Covid-19 cases and third in most deaths due to the disease.

Ghaziabad on Saturday stood second in Uttar Pradesh in number of active Covid-19 cases and third in most deaths due to the disease.

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In the absence of total number of tests in the daily state health bulletins, however, these numbers are not indicative of the prevalence of the disease in the state or even the district. The sharp rise in number of cases in June, however, is due to better testing and surveillance, according to the district’s chief medical officer (CMO) Dr. N K Gupta.

During the first two weeks of June, there were 22 positive cases per day. The third saw this number jump to 42 and in the ongoing last week, the average is about 78 per day, according to officials. “During the past five days, we have had ranging between 70-80 per day and in one instance they also went over 100. The cases have shown increasing trend in June and will continue in July as well,” said Gupta.

With the surge in cases, the district administration is now working on getting one more L-1 category hospital (for mild cases), either at SRM University, Modinagar or IMS College, Dasna. The recently acquired privately-run 250-bedded Divyajyoti Hospital at Niwari is almost on fully occupied.

According to the state control room figures till June 26, Ghaziabad had a total of 1333 cases (69 fresh), which included 50 deaths and 680 active cases. Till May 31, there were four deaths.

According to the CMO, the district tested 18,000 samples so far and pegged the positivity rate (which is the number of samples testing positive per test) at 7.4%. The recovery rate is 45%.

“The more of positive cases have resulted as we have now started with sampling of high risk groups and cases of influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory illness.This sampling towards the fixed groups is intended to reach out to the potential cases at the earliest and prevent them from getting into critical state and deaths due to Covid-19. Our prime focus is to reduce deaths. Since we have also started with antigen testing directed at the specific groups, the positive cases will rise further,” CMO added.

“The sampling figures will provide correct picture about density of cases and will further help in policy decisions. It could be an internal decision not to reveal sampling figures which they were providing earlier. But it is ideal that sampling should be enhanced to wide range of groups to know the exact incidence of Covid-19,” said Dr VB Jindal, president of Indian Medical Association, Ghaziabad.

The state of Uttar Pradesh, unlike Delhi, has no provision for home isolation of Covid-19 positive cases. As per the new discharge guidelines issued on June 19, asymptomatic patients in hospitals can be discharged on the 10th day if they still showed no symptoms without undergoing any test. But, such patients will have to remain in home quarantine for seven days after discharge.

As per the earlier guidelines, a positive patient needed to have two successive negative reports in order to get discharged.

“We have initiated the antigen testing in 10 districts of the state including six districts of western Uttar Pradesh. We conducted about 826 antigen tests on Friday and 26 persons were found positive for Covid-19 infection,” said Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’s principal secretary (health).

The western UP districts of the state which also includes Meerut are worst affected in terms of rising number of cases as well as number of deaths which have taken place so far.

The six districts Meerut, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Hapur account for 26.74% of total cases and 28.65% deaths in UP till June 26.