As COVID cases surge, Health Ministry directs states to follow 'five-fold strategy'

Following the recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, the Union Health Ministry, which is closely monitoring the situation, has now taken special cognisance of the four most-affected states including Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, and Karnataka, and has further asked them to follow the five-fold strategy of Test-Track-Treat-Vaccination and adherence to COVID Appropriate Behavior (CAB), reported ANI citing official sources on Thursday. 

According to ANI, the Health Ministry has also asked the states to monitor the cluster of new cases and further amp-up testing among people. 

This came shortly after Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote a letter to the officials of the five states - Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu asking for closely monitoring emerging clusters, maintaining adequate testing, and sending samples from affected individuals for genome sequencing. 

Furthermore, the letter states that there is a need to follow a risk-assessment based approach to public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic as the few states which are reporting higher number of cases indicates the possibility of a localised spread of infection.

Spike in COVID cases in India 

COVID cases in India have recently witnessed a sudden spike due to a rise in infections in a few states. India on Thursday recorded another surge in daily COVID cases as it reported 7,240 fresh infections in the 24 prior. Earlier, it had witnessed a rise of nearly 39% in daily infections. 

With the recent numbers, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases jumped to 4,31,97,522, while the death toll also climbed to 5,24,723 with eight fresh deaths. The active cases have also increased to 32,498, comprising 0.08% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.71%, the ministry informed.

Notably, the single-day rise in new Covid infections in India was recorded at over 7,000 after a span of 99 days, while the daily positivity rate crossed 2% after 111 days. 

Maharashtra being the most-affected state alone reported 2,701 new cases on Wednesday evening which is the highest in four months. Out of this, Mumbai alone Wednesday recorded 1,765 new COVID-19 cases, its highest single-day count since January 26. 

Image: PTI