Maharashtra forms 7-point action plan to contain spread of COVID-19

To check the spike in COVID19 cases the Maharashtra health department has come up a seven point action plan including testing of close contacts fast contacttracing mass testing in hotspots and audit of deathsAll district administrations have been directed to act upon these points immediately as per a letter dated March 3 of the health departments principal secretary Dr Pradeep VyasThe action plan also includes strict adherence to guidelines on social political and religious gatherings and to involve civil societies and religious leaders to motivate people to adopt COVID19appropriate behaviourThe COVID19 cases in Maharashtra have been on a rise since the second week of FebruaryOn Tuesday the state reported 9927 new COVID19 cases which took the caseload to 2238398 while 56 fatalities pushed up the death count to 52556 as per official dataThe action plan has been prepared following observations of a team from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which recently visited Nagpur Amravati Yavatmal Thane Pune and Mumbai where there has been a spike in cases of the viral infectionIn the letter issued to all district collectors and civic chiefs Dr Vyas said though the central team came out with observations based on its visits to the abovementioned districts a similar situation might be prevailing in other districts alsoHence all the district administrations need to act on these strategies he saidAs per the letter the districts have been asked to activate institutional quarantine or isolation facilities as there is no proper mechanism to monitor patients in home isolation on a daytoday basisAuthorities have been instructed that as the test report of a patients close contact is likely to be false negative if the person is in the incubation period there is a need to do or repeat the test around 5th to 7th day of the exposureTill then the person may be kept in institutional quarantine the letter saidContacttracing has to be really fast and most of the close contacts of the patient should be traced within 48 hours the letter statedThe central team has also suggested that in COVID19 hotspots there could be universal testing of each and every person using a largenumber of rapid antigen tests if sufficient RTPCR test capacity is not availableIf required these tests may be repeated after 14 days so that hotspots could be eliminated the letter saidAuthorities have also been asked tostrengthen the death audit mechanism at the level of health institutions and medical colleges to find out gaps in the treatment protocolsTo check crowds district administrations and civic bodies have been asked to scrupulously follow the guidelines for marriages and other social political and religious gatheringsThey have also been asked to rope in civil societies and religious leaders to motivate people towards adopting COVID19appropriate behaviourThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever