Being aware of the spike in COVID-19 cases in the northeast, the Centre on Friday Centre exhorts the North Eastern States to actively break the chain of transmission.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan through a video conference with the Principal Secretaries, Health Secretaries and other State representatives of the region asked them for strict enforcement of containment measures, increase in testing and effective case management of patients in the hospitals.
Officials from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim were present in the meeting. These 8 North Eastern States together account for 5 per cent of the total active cases in the country.
However, with active cases numbering 29,690, Assam is presently constituting 68 per cent share in the total active caseload of these eight states of the northeast.
Tripura has 7,383 active cases and occupies the second place with 17 per cent of the total active caseload of these States.
The secretaries and representatives from the States shared an in-depth analysis on the current status of COVID-19 in their States, covering aspects of containment measures, contact tracing, surveillance activities, facility-wise case fatality rates, trends in terms of weekly new cases and deaths, etc.
They also shared their detailed roadmaps and action plans for the next month.
Status of RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen tests conducted in the State, re-testing percentages of symptomatic negatives from Antigen tests, testing lab utilization, hospitalization status and bed occupancies of oxygen-supported beds, ICU beds and ventilator among others were presented at the review meeting.
The states were asked for limiting the spread of the infection by implementing stringent containment measures and following social distancing measures, strict perimeter control, and active house-to-house case search.
The states were also asked for early identification by ramping up testing across the states and districts, judicious and full utilization of RT-PCR testing capacity.
Effective monitoring of home isolation cases and early hospitalization in case of disease progression were also highlighted.
The states were asked for seamless hospitalization and early admission for patients requiring medical support, especially in cases of co-morbid and elderly populations and keep the mortality rate to 1 per cent.