Amid Surge In Covid-19 Cases, Govt Rushes High-Level Medical Teams To Maharashtra And Punjab

The central government has rushed high level multidisciplinary public health teams to Maharashtra and Punjab in view of the increase in the number of daily new Covid-19 cases being consistently reported by these states.

The high level public health teams are being deployed to assist the state health departments in Covid-19 surveillance, control and containment measures, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said in a statement.

The high level team in Maharashtra will be led by Dr P Ravindran, Senior CMO, Disaster Management Cell, MoHFW. The public health team in Punjab will be led by Dr S K Singh, Director, National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi.

The teams are going to visit the states immediately and will visit the hotspot areas in the states and ascertain reasons for the surge. They will also brief the Chief Secretary and Secretary Health on their observations and remedial measures to be undertaken by the state health authorities.

The ministry's statement states that the union government has been leading the fight against the covid pandemic with a ‘whole of government’ and ‘whole of society’ approach under the umbrella strategy of ‘cooperative federalism’.

As an ongoing effort to strengthen efforts of various state and union territory (UT) governments for covid management, the central government has been deputing central teams from time to time to visit various states and UTs.

These teams interact with the authorities and get a first hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks, if any.

The reports of central teams are shared with the states for further follow up action. The follow up and compliance on part of states is monitored by the union ministry of health.