Delhi: Health Min suggests aggressive surveillance to contain COVID amid surge in cases

With the surge in Coronavirus cases in the National Capital, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan stated that Delhi needs to ramp up testing coupled with aggressive surveillance, contact tracing and stringent containment and perimeter control activities.  This statement comes after Dr Harsh Vardhan chaired a high-level meeting through video conferencing (VC) to review the preparedness for prevention and control of COVID-19.

The meeting was attended by Ashwini Kumar Choubey, MoS (HFW), Anil Baijal, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and Satyendra Jain, Health Minister of Delhi.

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Better clinical management of the COVID-19 cases

Dr Harsh Vardhan pointed out that “the rising cases, high positivity rates and low testing levels in many districts are worrisome”. While the average testing per million population in Delhi was 2,018, some districts such as northeast (517 tests/million population) and Southeast (506 tests/million population) were far below. He further highlighted the immediate need and importance of scaling up of testing with health infrastructure enhancements along with better clinical management of the COVID-19 cases for effective case management and reduction of fatality rate.

“As a significant proportion are on home isolation, all efforts for timely response in terms of testing, triaging and shifting of patients to the required level of Dedicated COVID facility is important to avoid mortality”, the Health Minister stated.

'The high rate of infection in health care workers was also a serious issue. It indicates poor infection prevention control practices in health care settings and needs to be attended to on priority," he added,

He underscored that bed availability was to be rapidly increased in view of the current rapid rise of cases along with avoiding unnecessary delay in the admission of cases.

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Coronavirus in Delhi 

Meanwhile, With more than 1,500 fresh novel coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, Delhi's Covid-19 count has breached 23,000 today, according to authorities. This is the highest number of new cases to emerge in a single day in the national capital. The total number of coronavirus cases in the national capital has, therefore, reached 23,645.

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