Step up Covid-19 testing, avoid super-spreaders: Centre instructs states

Amid a looming threat of a spike in Covid-19 cases during the festive season, the Centre on Wednesday asked states to undertake aggressive testing at market places, workplaces and religious congregations that have the potential to become super-spreaders of the infectious disease.

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The directions from the Centre came at a meeting with Health Ministers of seven states, chaired by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, even as India’s active caseload of Covid-19 fell below five lakh mark after 106 days.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan advised states to focus on three areas to break the chain of transmission and keeping mortality less than 1% and the need for prolonged behaviour change.

He advised for quick and aggressive testing, targeted testing at market-places, workplaces, religious congregations which have the potential to become super-spreader events; followed by quick tracing and increase the proportion of tests through RT-PCR against rapid antigen tests.

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Harsh Vardhan reviewed the Covid-19 situation in Maharashtra, Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura through video link.

The minister noted that active cases of Covid-19 had come down in Maharashtra, but the state continues to have a large active caseload with a high fatality rate (2.6%) which increases to 3.5% in and around Mumbai. He voiced concern over the higher case fatality rate in Uttarakhand and the increase in active cases in Mizoram and Manipur.

The minister said Goa had witnessed 40% of the total deaths in last one month alone, which was a cause of worry, while higher deaths in the 45-60 years age groups in Tripura and Meghalaya were preventable.