North-East, September 12: The Centre urges the North East states to actively break the chain of COVID19 transmission. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhusan through a video conference with the Principal Secretaries, Health Secretaries and other State representatives of the region asked them for strict enforcement of containment measures, increase in testing and effective case management of patients.
Officials from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim were present in the meeting. All the 8 North Eastern States together account for 5 per cent of the total active cases in the country. Assam is leading among these 8 states with 68% of the share. Tripura has 7,383 active cases and occupies the second place.
The secretaries and representatives from the States shared an in-depth analysis of the COVID19 transmission situation in their respective states. They covered the containment measures, contact tracing, surveillance activities, facility-wise case fatality rates, trends in terms of weekly new cases and deaths and detailed road maps and action plans for the next month. Status of RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen tests conducted in the State, re-testing percentages of symptomatic negatives from Antigen tests, testing lab utilisation, hospitalization status and bed occupancies of oxygen- supported beds, ICU beds and ventilator among others were presented at the meeting.
The states were asked to limit the spread of the infection by implementing stringent containment measures and following social distancing norms. Strict perimeter control, active house-to-house case search, an increased number of RT-PCR testing were recommended. Early hospitalization and proper home isolation is also to be closely monitored, especially for the elderly population.
