The Union Health Ministry on Thursday deputed four separate high-level Central teams to Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Manipur to take stock of the Covid-19 situation there as it feared infection spillover effects particularly in the National Capital Region in view of sharp surge in Coronavirus cases in Delhi.
Overall cases in Delhi has crossed 5 lakh figure, the last one lakh cases reported in just last 15 days. Number of fatalities in the national capital is also on rise with experts warning that cases and deaths might increase further in the coming days because of the negligence of Covid-norms by the public during the ongoing festivals and holidays.
Randeep Guleria, Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), is leading the three-member team bound for Harayana; Niti Aayog member (health), V.K. Paul, is heading the Rajasthan team; NCDC Director, S.K. Singh, will be leading the Gujarat team; while Additional DDG, Directorate General of Health Services, L. Swasticharan, is heading the Manipur team, said the Ministry in a statement.
The teams will visit the districts reporting high number of Covid-19 cases and support the state efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing, infection prevention, control measures and efficient clinical management of the positive cases.
The Central teams shall also guide in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow-up.
“As an ongoing effort to strengthen the efforts of various state and UT Governments for Covid management, the Centre has been deputing Central teams from time to time to visit various states and UTs.
“These teams interact with the state and 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 the bottlenecks, if any,” the Ministry said.