ON VISIT TO UP, CENTRAL TEAM DISCUSSES CONTAINMENT STEPS

LUCKNOW: The central government team to assist the state health department in the implementation of containment measures to check the spread of coronavirus has started visiting districts where a spurt in Covid cases has been reported.

The central team, consisting of senior officers of the health ministry, a joint secretary- level nodal officer and a public health expert, is visiting Gautam

Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad, Moradabad, Firozabad, Meerut, Saharanpur, Kanpur and Lucknow where maximum cases have been reported.

Health minister Jai Pratap Singh said the central team was discussing the containment strategy in the red zones and hotspots and assisting the district health teams in redrawing the strategy to check the spread of coronavirus. The team would submit its report to the ministry of health and family welfare

as well as the state government, he said, following which the state would implement the recommendations.

The state government had already strengthened the facilities in the Covid hospitals across the state, he said. The training programme of doctors and paramedical staff for protection from coronavirus had been completed, he said.

On Friday, the central government had announced to send its expert team to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

A health department officer said earlier the central government sent public health teams to Agra and Saharanpur to assist the state health department in implementation of containment measures for hotspot areas.

The team comprising experts from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), AIIMS, JIPMER and All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, among others, recommended to the state government to increase the testing of the people, including those suffering from severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and Influenza like illness (ILI) to check the spread of coronavirus.

On the recommendation of the team, the state government increased the testing to around 5,000 samples per day as well as pool test of the people residing outside the containment zone. The samples of the people residing in the corona-free districts were being tested to find out if Covid was spreading its tentacles in the area, he said.