Central teams to handhold state health departments in six major cities with high number of coronavirus cases

Central teams have been deputed to assist state health officials in reviewing the public health measures being undertaken to combat COVID-19 in six cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru which are among the major contributors to India's rising tally of coronavirus infections.

These teams will provide technical support and handhold the state health departments and municipal health officials for reviewing public health measures implemented for containment and management of COVID-19 outbreak in the six cities, the Union health ministry said.

The teams will visit these cities within the next one week to review public health measures being undertaken for COVID-19 and submit a daily report of activities undertaken in collaboration with the local administration there.

"They will inform them regarding any issue of urgent importance and also submit a report of its observations and suggestions before concluding the visit," the ministry said.

The COVID-19 cases in Mumbai have crossed 51,000, while the national capital has reported more than 31,000 cases. Ahmedabad has reported nearly 15,000 cases while Chennai has over 22,000 cases.

On Tuesday, the ministry said that high-level multi-disciplinary central teams have been deployed in over 50 districts and municipal bodies spread across 15 states and UTs, witnessing a spurt in coronavirus cases, to assist local administrations in containment and management of COVID-19 outbreak there.

Meanwhile, the ministry said that the number of recoveries has exceeded the total COVID-19 active cases for the first time on Wednesday even as India reported close to 10,000 new instances of the infection pushing the country's cumulative caseload to over 2.7 lakh.

The country's death toll has also risen to 7,745, according to the health ministry data updated till 8 am. The number of active cases in the country stands at 1,33,632 while 1,35,205 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the ministry said. As many as 5,991 patients were cured of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

"Thus, 48.9 per cent of the patients have recovered so far," an official said.

As per the global evidence, 80 per cent of COVID cases are mild cases remaining 20 per cent may develop complications which would require hospitalisation. Out of the hospitalized cases of COVID-19 only 5 per cent may require ICU care, the official said.

According to ICMR, a total of 50,61,332 samples have been tested till 9 AM with 1,45,216 samples tested in the last 24 hours.

India currently is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to data issued by the Johns Hopkins University.