Centre to deploy teams in UP, J'khand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha to tackle rising COVID cases

 Central teams will be deployed in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, which are seeing a sudden surge in COVID-19 cases, the Union health ministry said on Monday. It asserted that the teams will support the states' efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of positive cases.

The teams will also guide the states in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up, the ministry said in a statement.

Each of the multi-sectoral teams will comprise an epidemiologist and a public health expert.

The health ministry said it has decided to deploy high-level central teams to Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha, which are seeing a sudden surge in the number of COVID cases.

Some of these states are also reporting high mortality, the ministry said.

"The teams will support the states’ efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of the positive cases," it said.

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 have been reported from Uttar Pradesh (3,423) while Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have reported 482, 410 and 269 deaths respectively.

As an ongoing effort, the Centre has been deputing central teams from time to time to visit various states to interact with authorities and get a first-hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks, if any. 

(Image Credits:PTI)