The Union health ministry said on Sunday it was deploying 20 central teams to coronavirus disease (Covid-19) hot spots including Delhi and Mumbai to assist in controlling high caseloads and helping the state governments in their strategies against the contagion.
The move comes days after the Union home ministry sent Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) to states where the situation was “especially serious”. The central teams have flagged areas of concern in the states over the battle against Covid-19 and suggested remedial measures.
“The teams of experienced specialists were constituted over the weekend and are being sent to the states from where maximum cases are being reported. These teams will assist the state government in surveillance, implementing effective contact tracking measures, case management and infection control,” said a senior health ministry official on Sunday, asking not to be named.
The severely hit districts where these 20 teams will work with state experts are Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Delhi (south-east and central districts), Indore, Pune, Jaipur, Thane, Surat, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Agra, Kolkata, Kurnool, Guntur, Krishna and Lucknow.
“These teams will support the states in implementation of containment measures for Ccovid-19 in the affected areas within these districts/cities. The teams shall assist the state governments,” a statement by the health ministry said.
{{/usCountry}}“These teams will support the states in implementation of containment measures for Ccovid-19 in the affected areas within these districts/cities. The teams shall assist the state governments,” a statement by the health ministry said.
{{/usCountry}}Another official said these are districts with high cumulative positive figures, cases doubling too frequently or high death rates.
According to the health ministry’s revised list on Saturday, 130 districts across the country are “red zone” or hot spots of the disease. While there are 284 “orange zones”, 319 districts are “green zone”, which have largely remained outside the spectre of the highly contagious disease.
All major metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, are now “red zones” as they have been reporting high caseloads and infection clusters.
The states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have the highest number of “red zones” at 19 and 14 respectively, followed by Tamil Nadu at 12. All of Delhi’s 11 districts are hot spots.
The new list has been prepared by including factors such as incidence of testing, level of testing, and population density of the area. “This is a dynamic list that gets revised on a daily basis as the outbreak is a highly evolving situation,” an official said on condition of anonymity.