Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has decided to deploy Central teams to Punjab and UT of Chandigarh.

The high level teams will assist the State/UT in strengthening public health measures for containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of COVID patients with the aim to reduce mortality and save lives. They shall also guide the State/UT in effectively addressing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up.

The two-member teams will comprise of a Community Medicine expert from PGIMER, Chandigarh and an epidemiologist from NCDC. These teams shall be stationed in the State/UT for ten days to provide extended guidance in managing COVID.

Punjab has reported a total of 60,013 cases, whereas it has 15,731Active Cases, on date. It has registered 1739 deaths. The Testing Per Million figure for the State is 37546 (India’s average figure is 34593.1 at present). With 4.97%, it hovers at the lower spectrum of cumulative positivity.

The UT of Chandigarh is reporting 2095 active cases whereas its cumulative cases stand at 5268. Testing Per Million and cumulative positivity stand at 38054 and 11.99%, respectively.

The Centre is actively supporting the States/UTs that are seeing a sudden surge in the number of COVID cases and those that are reporting high mortality by deputing multi-sectoral Central teams. Many such teams have visited several States/UTs in the past months. The teams interact with the field authorities to get a first hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them.

The Union Health Ministry has been engaging with several States/UTs that are witnessing a surge in COVID cases and high mortality in some districts during the past two days. The States/UTs have been advised to proactively undertake comprehensive measures to break the chain of transmission of the infectious disease and lower mortality, such that it eventually dips below 1%.