Jharkhand Government has directed the Deputy Commissioners of at least seven of 24 districts to intensify vigil on passengers travelling to the State by trains from Delta Plus-affected States, especially Kerala, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and asked the concerned officials to ensure mandatory Covid testing of such passengers at railway stations followed by thorough contact tracing and surveillance during their stay in Jharkhand, health officials said on Monday.
Amid the growing fear of Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is said to have a higher transmissibility and lethality, Additional Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Singh, in a letter to the deputy commissioners of Ranchi, Dhanbad, Ramgarh, Bokaro, Deoghar, East Singhbhum and West Singhbhum stated that any form of complacency in testing passengers coming from the states affected by this mutated variant of the virus could have severe consequences.
“Some states in India, primarily Kerala, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have witnessed a rise in the positivity rate of Covid-19 lately. These states have also reported cases of the new and more dangerous Delta Plus variant of the virus. The concerned deputy commissioners are hereby directed to ensure Covid testing of all passengers travelling from these states at railway stations itself, followed by contact tracing and surveillance,” the letter stated.
The deputy commissioners have also been directed to submit daily reports of trains arriving at various railway stations and passengers travelling by them to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) by evening. Daily reporting, officials said, will ensure foolproof surveillance and help in detecting any possible risks at an early stage.
The positivity rate of Covid-19 in Jharkhand, as per the letter from Singh, was 2.97 per cent, while the positivity rate in Kerala has been 10.59 per cent to 12.35 per cent in the past couple of days, which is worrisome and alarming. Even though the passenger traffic has reduced due to Covid-19, several trains from Cochin, Pune, Mumbai and Bhopal still arrive in Jharkhand every week, railway officials said.
Jharkhand is yet to report cases of the Delta Plus variant of coronavirus. The government, however, has been taking several precautions to avoid the entry of the mutated variant of the virus in the state. All districts have been directed to send RT-PCR samples for genome sequencing to the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) in Bhubaneshwar regularly to detect the variants affecting people in the state. Meanwhile, the state is also planning to procure genome sequencing machines to detect new variants of concern in the state itself.
The tribal state has reported a significant drop in Covid cases after the second wave of Covid-19 wreaked havoc in Jharkhand. As per government data, only 211 residents were battling the viral infection in Jharkhand on Sunday. The fatality rate has also dropped considerably, while Covid recovery rate has risen to 98.46 per cent in the state.