High-level Central teams to be deployed to UP, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha to control rising COVID-19 cases

File Photo (ANI)

New Delhi: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday (August 31, 2020) said that it has decided to deploy high-level Central teams to Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha to assist in controlling the sudden COVID-19 surge in these states. 

As per the official statement, the teams will support the State efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing and efficient clinical management of the positive cases. 

They will also guide the States in effectively managing the challenges related to timely diagnosis and follow up.

Each of the multi-sectoral teams will comprise of an epidemiologist and a public health expert.

Uttar Pradesh reportedly has 54,666 COVID-19 active cases, followed by Odisha at 27,219, Chhattisgarh at 13,520 and Jharkhand which has 11,577 active cases. 

In terms of total coronavirus infections till date, Uttar Pradesh has witnessed 2,25,632 cases while Odisha has reported 1,00,934. 

On the other hand, Jharkhand has recorded 38,435 COVID-19 confirmed cases and Chhattisgarh has 30,092 cases. 

Out of these four states, Uttar Pradesh has reported the most number of deaths - 3423, whereas, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have reported 482, 410 and 269 deaths respectively.

As an ongoing effort, the Central Government has been deputing Central teams from time to time to visit various States to 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.  

Meanwhile, the coronavirus cases across India has crossed 36 lakh mark with the single-day spike of more than 78,000 fresh cases on Monday.

As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India's COVID-19 tally now stands at 36,21,246, of which, 7,81,975 are active cases.

A total of 27,74,802  have recovered from the virus so far and the recovery rate has reached 76.62 per cent and the positivity rate was 9.27 per cent. 

So far, 64,469 people have succumbed to the virus.