Negligence in home-quarantine causes spike in Kerala: Central team

Mangalore Today News Network

Thiruvanantapuram, Aug 03, 2021: The Union government on Tuesday, August 3, gave an update on the central team that visited the state of Kerala amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases. Lav Agarwal, the Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry, told the media on Tuesday that a six-member team was sent to Kerala, headed by Dr Sujeet Singh, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and former Deputy Director-General of the Disaster Management Cell, and other public experts. Kerala has been reporting a high number of cases even as the second wave is weaning off in most states. The Union government said that in the last week, 49.85 per cent of the total coronavirus cases in the country were reported from Kerala.

 

The Health Ministry informed the media that the central team visited Malappuram district in Kerala, and found that there was an upward trend in the test positivity rate. The current TPR in Malappuram district is approximately 17.26%. The central team has advised the district officials to increase active surveillance and contact tracing.

The central team also found that the categorisation of districts based on test positivity rate — into A, B, C and D — based on which restrictions have been imposed, has not shown expected results yet, Lav Agarwal said.
As per the Kerala government, places with TPR below 5% will be put under category A, areas with TPR between 5% and 10% will be put under category B, 10 to 15 % under category C. Category D will include places with more than 15% TPR.

The Union Ministry’s team also found that dependency of testing is 20% on RT-PCR tests, while 80% of the samples are being tested via Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs). The Health Ministry team has recommended officials to ramp up the use of RT-PCR testing.

“It has been observed that those who are reporting symptoms, they are coming to get tested. But, India’s containment strategy says that where a cluster of cases has been reported, a containment zone is set up, around which a buffer zone is established,” Lav Agarwal said. “What is critical is the containment approach — that should be followed 100 percent on the field,” Lav Agarwal said.

The central team has also recommended that contact tracing be done in a proper manner. In Malappuram, 91 percent of the cases are in home isolation. “Which means all family members are high-risk contacts and they need to be traced. The team has found that the contact tracing ratio in the district was found to be 1:1.15, when the Union government has recommended that the ratio be 1:15 or 1:20,” Lav Agarwal said. Those COVID-19 patients or contacts who have comorbidities should be encouraged to opt for institutional care, he said.

While focusing on containment and contract tracing, the state advised to ramp up the health system where it is strained and ramp up vaccinations.

On Tuesday, Kerala reported 23,676 new cases, 15,626 recoveries and 148 deaths, taking the active caseload in the state to 1,73,221. The test positivity rate stands at 11.87%.

R-naught value high in 8 states

The Union government on Tuesday also said India’s reproductive number — which denotes the spread of the coronavirus infection — is more than one in eight states, including Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Reproduction or reproduction number is a measure that highlights the number of people a coronavirus positive person infects, thereby reflecting the severity of its spread. A number of one or below one indicates a slowly spreading virus while any number above 1 indicates a rapid spread.

The Health Ministry has said that the pandemic is far from over, and the second wave, as far as India is concerned, is still not over. The daily new COVID-19 cases being reported across the world are still high as more than 4.7 lakh infections are being recorded every day, the official added.

The government said 44 districts across 12 states and Union Territories reported more than 10 per cent weekly COVID-19 positivity rate in the week ending August 2. It said that 18 districts from six states, including Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, reported an increasing trend in daily new Covid cases in the last four weeks. The government also said that the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in July is more than double the number reported in May.

Courtesy:The News Minute