The Centre has sent public health teams to 10 states, including Bengal, to help strengthen Covid-19 surveillance and containment, accelerate vaccination campaigns and organise hospital and ambulance resources amid fears of omicron-driven surges.
Each team will spend three to five days in these states — Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh — to assess the epidemic and the preparedness and suggest remedial action, the health ministry said on Saturday.
It said some of the 10 states had either reported rising omicron or Covid-19 cases or currently had vaccination coverage levels lower than the national average.
India’s count of omicron cases rose on Saturday to 415 in 17 states with the top five numbers in Maharashtra (108), Delhi (79), Gujarat (43), Telangana (38) and Kerala (37). Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have over 30 cases each, while Bengal has three.
The central teams will work with state authorities on key public health measures that experts say will be critical to containing clusters of local infections, if any, and preventing them from exploding into large outbreaks that could strain local hospital resources.
The rapid rise in omicron-driven waves in other countries has stirred concerns that the fast-spreading and immune-evasive variant will cause surges across India too. Health officials and experts have asserted that only efficient local containment will help prevent simultaneous surges from triggering a third nationwide wave.
The teams will also assess the availability of hospital beds, ambulances, medical oxygen and ventilators, adoption of Covid-appropriate precautions, and vaccination campaigns in the states, the ministry said.
Among the 10 states, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have fully vaccinated less than 50 per cent of their adult populations — lower than the national two-dose average of 61 per cent.
The health ministry has been urging the states to complete full vaccination as soon as possible. It has advocated door-to-door search campaigns, among other means, to immunise those whose second doses are overdue.
The gap between the numbers of those administered at least one dose and those fully vaccinated is wide in some states. For instance, Uttar Pradesh has administered first doses to 84 per cent of its adult population but only 46 per cent have received second doses. In Maharashtra, 87 per cent have received first doses but only 56 per cent have got second doses.
Health authorities on Saturday documented 7,189 new Covid-19 infections nationwide over the previous 24 hours, higher than the 6,650 cases over the previous day. But the seven-day average has remained below 10,000 over the past four weeks.
