Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Tuesday, March 16, wrote to the Maharashtra government after the central team's visit last week amid rising coronavirus cases in the state.
In a strong-worded letter, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan warned the Thackeray government that Maharashtra is “at the beginning of the second wave of COVID-19”. Moreover, there very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts. There is no adherence to COVID-appropriate behaviour among people both in rural and urban areas, the letter stated.
Moreover, the Centre has asked the Uddhav Thackeray-led government to focus on strict and effective containment strategy as the measures such as night curfews, weekend lockdowns, etc. have very limited impact on containing the spread of the virus.
The letter said that the current case fatality was found to be very high among admitted cases in hospitals like -- Government Medical College in Aurangabad and in Vasant Rao Pawar Medical College, Nashik. This needed investigation in detail, including sending samples for Whole Genome Sequencing, Bhushan said.
Because of limited contact tracing, a large pool of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people was not being tracked and tested, said the letter, suggesting that testing be considerably enhanced according to protocol laid down by the Indian Council of Medical Research.
“The testing has to be augmented to bring the test positivity rate to less than five per cent. Whereas the mainstay of testing shall be RT-PCR, the state should also utilise kits as per ICMR guidance especially in containment zones and high-risk settings like super-spreader events, bus stops, railway stations, slums, densely populated areas etc.,” the Union health secretary wrote in his letter.
“For every positive case, at least 20 to 30 close contacts (including family contacts, social contacts' workplace contacts and other casual contacts) must be promptly traced and tracked. The field staff engaged in contact tracing training/reorientation and develop skills on interpersonal communication for contact tracing. The contacts of a positive case should be tested strictly in accordance with the ICMR guidelines (five-10 days after exposure),” Bhushan told the Maharashtra government.
On March 15, Maharashtra reported 15,051 new coronavirus cases, taking the state's tally to 23,29,464. With 48 more people succumbing to the contagious virus, the fatalities count increased to 52,909.
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