Centre sends public health teams to 20 worst-affected districts to help states in virus containment

Twenty central public health teams have been constituted and are being deployed in as many affected districts having high case load of COVID-19 in nine states and Delhi to identify the gaps and support them in proper implementation of cluster containment plans and surveillance measures.

According to the Union Health Ministry, these teams will be deployed in 20 districts -- Mumbai, Thane, Pune in Maharashtra; Bhopal, Indore in Madhya Pradesh;Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara in Gujarat; South East and Central Districts in Delhi;Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan; Agra and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh;Hyderabad in Telangana; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Kolkata in West Bengal; and Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna in Andhra Pradesh.

These teams comprising experts from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), AIIMS, JIPMER and All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health among others will submit reports to additional chief secretary/principal secretary/secretary (health) of respective states detailing their observations, areas for improvement and recommendations, according to an office memorandum issued on May 2.

"A decision has been taken in the Ministry of Health to deploy public health teams to assist health departments in managing COVID-19 outbreaks in selected districts," said an official.

The regional directors under the ministry of health in these nine states and one Union Territory will coordinate the deployment of these teams with the state health authorities.

All the 20 districts are in the red zone.

The ministry has listed 130 districts in the country in 'red'zone, 284 in 'orange'zone and 319 in 'green'zone on the basis of incidence of cases of COVID-19, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback.

This classification of districts is to be followed by states and UTs till a week post May 3 for containment operations.

The list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states for further follow-up action.

India registered a record jump of 83 deaths and 2,487 cases in 24 hours as the number of COVID-19 fatalities rose to 1,306 and total cases climbed to 40,263 on Sunday, according to the Union health ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 28,070, while 10,886 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said. The total number of cases also include 111 foreign nationals.

According to the health ministry data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country is from Maharashtra at 12,296, followed by Gujarat (5,055), Delhi (4,122),Madhya Pradesh (2,846), Rajasthan (2,772), Tamil Nadu (2,757) and Uttar Pradesh (2,626).

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 1,583 in Andhra Pradesh and 1,063 in Telangana. It has risen to 922 in West Bengal.