Health secretary writes to Kerala govt, asks it to ramp up Covid-19 containment

The Union health secretary asked the state to strictly follow the norms of the Union government on high transmission clusters and strengthen contact tracing measures. All district administrations will have to comply with the accepted norms of home quarantine and there should be an intensive follow up on such cases.

With Covid-19 cases steadily rising in Kerala, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Friday sent another letter to the Kerala government expressing serious concern over the situation and listed immediate measures to contain the surge.

For the third consecutive day, Kerala reported over 30,000 cases which is about 65 per cent of the total cases in the country. (ANI PHOTO.)

In the letter addressed to the state chief secretary VP Joy he said the state will have to ramp up its containment measures on priority basis and increase tests considerably to check the high rate of transmission. All 14 districts have reported high test positivity rate in the past four weeks and the state continues to report more than half of the total cases of the country, he pointed out in the letter.

The Union health secretary asked the state to strictly follow the norms of the Union government on high transmission clusters and strengthen contact tracing measures. All district administrations will have to comply with the accepted norms of home quarantine and there should be an intensive follow up on such cases. Covid-19 appropriate behaviour should be enforced at any cost and mass gathering should be avoided, he said in the letter.

The state has also been asked to enhance genomic surveillance in areas of high transmission and samples of all breakthrough infections (those getting infected after taking both doses) should be sent for detailed genome sequencing tests. He also urged the state to streamline vaccine policy and an action plan for each district will have to be devised. “I would like to reiterate that any laxity in ensuring the five-fold strategy of ‘test, track, treat, vaccinate and ensure Covid-appropriate behaviour’ may result in further surge in the state,” he said in the letter.

State health minister Veena George was not available for comment. But a senior official of the health ministry said the state has been following these norms after the visit of the central team in the first week of August. Union Health Minister M Mandaviya had also visited the state and held detailed talks with CM Pinarayi Vijayan. Opposition Congress and BJP have criticised the state’s virus containment strategy and held the CM responsible for the sorry state of affairs

For the third consecutive day the state reported over 30,000 cases which is about 65 per cent of the total cases in the country. On Friday it reported another hike with 32,801 cases with a high test positivity rate (TPR) of 19.22 per cent after 1,70,703 samples were tested. It also reported 179 fatalities taking the death toll to 20, 313. The active cases also increased to 1,95,254, said the state health ministry. Four districts reported more than 3000 new cases-- Malappuram 4032, Thrissur 3953, Ernakulam 3627 and Kozhikode 3362.