Monitor clusters, screen influenzas: Centre’s advisory to 5 states with fresh rise in cases
India registered more than 4,000 Covid cases today, a significant surge in infections after nearly three months.
The Union health ministry on Friday wrote to five states with a recent increase in Covid-19 cases and asked them to monitor clusters and take necessary steps required to curb further spread of the viral infection in a prompt and effective manner.
The Centre asked the five states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra – to screen infections of severe acute respiratory infections and influenza-like illnesses, and increase genome sequencing following government guidelines to check the spread of the coronavirus disease.
India's daily Covid-19 tally breached the 4,000-mark on Friday after nearly three months. The country logged 4,041 new cases and 10 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry data.
The surge took the cumulative nationwide tally to 43,168,585, the health ministry data showed. On Thursday, 3,712 cases and five fatalities were recorded during the same period.
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The latest rise in cases are, according to officials, mostly fuelled by pockets of outbreak in the country’s large urban centres like Mumbai and Chennai.
In Mumbai, the seven-day average of daily infections climbed to more than 400 cases a day for the past week. Just two weeks ago, this number was 143 – marking an increase of nearly 200 per cent. In Chandigarh tri-city, the Covid-19 cases remained over the 30-mark on Thursday, for the second consecutive day.
