Even as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are already contributing around 43 per cent of the total Covid-19 caseload in India, four populous States Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha have started giving nightmares to the Government with a sudden surge in the number of infections and some of them even reporting high mortality.
On Monday, an alarmed Union Health Ministry decided to deploy high-level Central teams comprising of an epidemiologist and a public health expert to these States to help the authorities there in strengthening containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management mechanisms.
Of these four States, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of active cases pegged at 54,666, followed by Odisha (27,219), Chhattisgarh (13,520) and Jharkhand which has 11,577 active cases.
In terms of total/cumulative cases till date, Uttar Pradesh has 2,25,632, Odisha (1,00,934), Jharkhand (38,435) and Chhattisgarh has 30,092 cases. The most number of deaths are reported in Uttar Pradesh (3,423) while Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are reporting 482, 410 and 269 deaths cumulatively.
A senior official from the Ministry said that each of the multi-sectoral teams will also guide the States in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up.
The ministry also said that seven states have contributed to 70 per cent of the new cases in the last 24 hours. Of these, Maharashtra has contributed the maximum caseload amounting to almost 21 per cent, followed by Andhra Pradesh 13.5 per cent, Karnataka 11.27 per cent and Tamil Nadu with 8.27 per cent.
Of the total number of cases, around 43 per cent were recorded in just three states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, it said.
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka also account for about 50 per cent of the deaths added in the last 24 hours due to COVID-19, with Maharashtra leading with 30.48 per cent, the ministry said.
The coronavirus tally in India crossed 36 lakh on Monday with 78,512 new cases, while the number of recoveries surged to 27,74,801, pushing the recovery rate to 76.62 per cent, according to the Health Ministry data. The death toll climbed to 64,469 with 971 more people succumbing to the infection in 24 hours.
The daily testing capacity has been scaled up to more than 10 lakh in August 2020 while the cumulative tests have crossed 4.23 crore with 8,46,278 tests conducted in the past 24 hours, said the official.