Covid-19: India warns five states to monitor virus spread as cases rise

The government urges states to adopt a five-fold strategy of testing, tracking, treating, vaccinating and adhering to precautions

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Reuters file
Reuters file

Published: Sat 9 Apr 2022, 10:37 AM

Last updated: Sat 9 Apr 2022, 10:39 AM

The Indian government has directed five states, including Maharashtra, Kerala and Delhi, to continue monitoring the spread of Covid-19 cases and take steps for prompt and effective management.

“A sustained and significant decline in the number of Covid-19 cases has been observed in India over the past two months, with the country reporting less than 1,000 daily new cases for the past few days,” said Rajesh Bhushan, the union health secretary on Friday. “The weekly positivity rate has remained below 1 per cent. However, some states are contributing more cases than the others.”


Kerala has reported 2,321 new cases last week accounting for 31.8 per cent of new cases.

“The state has also seen an increase in the positivity rate in the last week from 13.4% to 15.5 per cent,” said Bhushan. “Regular monitoring and follow-up action in emerging areas of concern is crucial.”


The other states include Mizoram and Haryana. The former reported 814 new cases last week and its positivity rate went up from 14.3 per cent to 16.4 per cent.

Bhushan urged the five states to adopt the five-fold strategy of “test, track, treat, vaccination and adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour.” States have also been asked to monitor influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (Sari) to detect early warning signals of the spread of infection.

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They have also been urged to conduct genomic sequencing of samples of international passengers and from local clusters.


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