Health ministry rushes high-level expert teams to four states for Covid-19 review

At least two of the states—Haryana and Manipur—have more Covid-19 cases per million than the national average

The union ministry of health and family welfare has rushed high-level expert teams to Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Manipur, to assist in strengthening containment, surveillance, testing, infection prevention, and efficient clinical management of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on ground. The teams comprise three experts each.

“With the surge in the daily new cases and the spike in the daily fatalities in Delhi, the spillover effect is being observed in the NCR, within the states of Haryana and Rajasthan, where the number of Covid-19 patients is on the rise,” said the health ministry.

Dr Randeep Guleria, director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, is leading the three-member team bound for Haryana, and Dr VK Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog, is heading the Rajasthan team.

Dr SK Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), will be leading the Gujarat team, and Dr L Swasticharan, additional deputy director general, directorate general of health services, health ministry, will be heading the team sent to Manipur.

At least two of the states—Haryana and Manipur—have more Covid-19 cases per million than the national average. While the national average is 6.492 Covid-19 cases per million, Haryana has reported 7,341 Covid-19 cases, and Manipur has reported 7,219 cases at present. While Gujarat is reporting 3,000 cases, Rajasthan has reported 2,867 Covid-19 cases per million of its population.

“As an ongoing effort to strengthen the efforts of various State/UT Governments for Covid-19 management, the Central government has been deputing Central teams from time to time to visit various States/UTs. These teams interact with the State/UT authorities and get a firsthand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks, if any,” the health ministry said.