Centre asks states to step up vigil, strictly monitor clinical profile of hospitalised Covid cases

The Centre on Tuesday stressed on continuous alertness and advised states and Union territories reporting a surge in Covid cases to strictly monitor epidemiological profile of admitted coronavirusinfected patients and report the clinical manifestations to the health ministry rather than random or anecdotal reportingThis will help in identifying at an early stage any outoftheordinary or different clinical presentation of the patients Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said during a review meeting with 14 states and union territoriesBhushan reviewed the status of Covid situation through video conference with those states and Union territories that are reporting high number of cases on a weektoweek basis along with increased case positivity combined with low numbers of Covid tests and below average Covid vaccination a health ministry statement saidNoting that the uptake in second and precaution doses in many states reporting the present surge was low they were advised to rapidly accelerate the vaccination coverage especially of the 60 plus elderly population and second dose among 1217 population group the statement saidAlso Read Mumbai Covid ICU admissions up 26 per cent but doctors say situation not alarmingIt was pointed out that the ongoing Har Ghar Dastak20 drive needed a strong push to ramp up Covid vaccine uptakeUnderscoring that there was no shortage of Covid vaccines the states were advised to ensure that vaccines that expire first are administered first preventing any wastage of the precious national resourceNITI Aayog Member Health Dr Vinod Paul advised Assam Delhi Goa Gujarat Haryana Karnataka Kerala Maharashtra Meghalaya Mizoram Rajasthan Telangana Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal reporting spike in Covid19 cases to be watchful of the emerging pandemic situationThe major action point is to focus on strengthening proactive surveillance as per the Revised Surveillance Strategy issued by Union Health Ministry on June 9 he stressedRoutine surveillance constitutes the steel frame of our Covid response and management strategy and needs continuous and unstinted attention he saidThe fourfold strategy highlights surveillance of incoming international travellers communitybased surveillance sentinel site surveillance health facilitybased surveillance and labbased surveillance and whole genome sequencing States were advised to scan for and report all SARI and ILI cases from all district hospitals major private hospitals and medical colleges across the districts and keep a close watch on those geographies where these clusters are emerging the statement saidStates were also strongly advised to strictly monitor epidemiological profile of admitted Covid19 patients and report the clinical manifestation to health ministry rather than a random or anecdotal reportingThis will help to identify at an early stage any outoftheordinary or different clinical presentation of the patients the statement saidBoth Paul and Bhushan highlighted the low level of Covid testing across the states and drop in RTPCR shareInstead of a thin and wide testing spectrum states were advised to focus on strategic testing of patients coming to fever clinics SARI and ILI patientsalong with new clusters and geographies in all districts reporting higher positivityIn addition the states were reminded to undertake whole genome sequencing through the mapped labs of INSACOG network according to the revised surveillance strategy of the health ministry which has already been shared with the states and Union territories the statement saidBhushan urged the states to ensure that claims under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package Insurance Scheme for Health Workers Fighting Covid19 were expeditiously processed to ensure that insurance dues are paid to those public healthcare providers including community health workers who have died due to CovidThe states were advised to focus on implementation of Covid appropriate behaviour to control the spread of infection especially in view of the forthcoming festivals in many states the statement addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever