Centre asks 5 states to monitor clusters of COVID-19 cases, follow five-fold strategy

Rajesh Bhushan, the Union Health Secretary, has written a letter to officials in five states, including Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, requesting that they closely monitor emerging clusters of COVID-19 cases, maintain an adequate number of tests, and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.

“There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India’s cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of infection. There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic,” read the letter. The state is advised to follow a five-fold strategy i.e test – track – treat – vaccination and should also follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, monitoring clusters of new COVID-19 cases and adequate testing as per guidelines.

In India, the number of Covid-19 cases has been steadily declining for the previous three months, according to Bhusan. He added there has been a modest increase in instances in the last week, with 15,708 cases recorded in the week ending May 27th, up to 21,055 cases as of June 3rd. During the week, weekly optimism increased from 0.52 percent to 0.73 percent, he noted.

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